Primeval Series 6, Episode 7 - The Day That Wouldn't Dawn
by qjay
Summary: It's the worst day in the history of the ARC. Hurt and scattered by an enemy with the ability to control time itself, the remaining members of the team must decide what they'll risk- their lives, their loves, or even the world- to save the future. Conclusion of my theoretical sixth series.
1. Teaser

**Primeval 6.7** ("The Day That Wouldn't Dawn")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was originally written in script format; I'm converting it to prose as I continue writing my own version of a sixth series for the UK Primeval. I haven't seen the New World spin-off yet, so these stories may contradict it. Also, I'm not British. Please excuse any slang or terminology that would not be used in the UK.

MANY THANKS for reading this series; it's been a lot of fun.

* * *

**Teaser**

_A woman walks into a room full of aging, battered electronics and locates a disused computer monitor. With a bit of tinkering, she manages to get it running and is gratified to see that it still has power- probably running on a backup generator. The people who built the room didn't miss a lot of chances._

_There's a DVD drive linked to the screen. The woman sits down and produces a plastic case, from which she draws a single disc. She slides the disc into the DVD player and presses play. The screen lights up with snow and static, then resolves into..._

_A room in a government office. A young woman, short and athletic, with striking blue eyes and platinum blonde hair cut into bangs, stares back from the screen. The woman who played the DVD smiles. Yes, this is the right disc, all right. This is the information she's been searching for..._

_The blonde on the screen clears her throat, takes a sip of water. She has dark circles under her eyes; she's been through hell, not too long before the recording was made. After a moment of staring into the camera, she begins to speak..._

_"My name is Abigail Sarah Maitland-Temple, and this is my report on the final mission of the ARC..." The blonde trails off, thinks again. "No, that's not enough. Let me go back and explain. For the past six years, with time in the Cretaceous Era, I've been a civilian consultant for the Anomaly Research Centre, under James Lester._

_"I'm a zoological specialist. I work with creatures, the most extraordinary creatures in the world... and those are just the humans." She cracks a smile, but it doesn't seem to suit her face. After another sip of water, it is gone. "There's been a lot of trouble about the whole thing, about... what happened to the ARC. I've told this story half a dozen times, and no one quite believes me. Maybe if I lay it all out, from the beginning... maybe then you'll understand."_

_The blonde woman looks away from camera. There's a sadness in those blue eyes, a weight on her shoulders that seems to bely her youth. She shakes her head. "We all lost so much, you see... more than you can know if you weren't part of it. I'm not even sure how to begin._

_"Wait. Yes, I am. What if you woke up one morning, and it was the end of the world? And what if you had one chance- just one- to stop the whole thing? What would you do? What would you sacrifice, to change the world?_

_"I'm getting ahead of myself again. The first sign was what happened to Jess. Jessica Parker, our team co-ordinator, had been hurt in a raid by a group we'd been calling Southfield. Actually, Southfield was just one of their outposts among... dozens, maybe hundreds. I don't know how many. But Southfield was the face we knew, and the name stuck._

_"Jess's condition was very bad..."_

* * *

**Earlier...**

_"It was hard for everyone. We all loved Jess like a little sister. But it was worst for Becker. He fancied her; they were in love. I guess I shouldn't put that in an official report. I married one of my co-workers, but I'm a civilian; Becker's military, and old-fashioned about such things. What's the word they have for it? Fraternising. But what can it matter now?"_

Jess Parker drew in a sudden breath, stirred, and produced sound for the first time in days; only a quiet moan, but it was enough to snap Becker out of a sound sleep. He all but leaped across the room to her side, and knelt down beside the bed. He ran his fingers through her hair, held her hand, waiting for some sign... anything to indicate he wasn't as close to losing her forever as he knew he was...

Finally, just when Becker thought there'd be no change- again- Jess's hand moved under his. He gasped and started to call a nurse, but then her eyes fluttered...

"Jess!" he said. "Jess, can you hear me?"

She groaned, tried to speak but couldn't manage more than a squeak. Tried again. "Everything hurts..."

"I know darling. But you're going to be better soon, I promise."

The edges of her mouth turned up- a smile? Almost. She murmured, "Sorry..."

"Sorry?" Becker laughed, though there was no humour in it. "What are you sorry for?"

"Not much of a girlfriend so far... am I?"

Becker squeezed her hand and smiled. Even now, Jess was thinking about other people instead of herself. "You're perfect. You're absolutely perfect. You just rest now."

Jess mumbled something and fell asleep again. She was heavily sedated, the only way to keep her relatively free of pain. Becker shut his eyes tight, his hands gripping hers as he tried to close out the world. He couldn't believe it had come to this. For all the horrors he'd seen in his military career, all the friends he'd lost at the ARC, this was the one that just couldn't be real...

The monitor above the bed continued to tick away Jess's vital signs, weak now and getting weaker by the minute...

* * *

_"We all spent time at Jess's bedside, but I'm ashamed to say I was a bit distracted. I was newly-married, you see. It happened quickly, in secret... during a zombie invasion, actually. Long story. We hadn't even had a real ceremony._

_"And I know it sounds horrible, but there'd been so much fear and sadness at the ARC over the past few months... I just needed something to hold onto so badly, and there was something I was really anxious to do..."_

Bleary-eyed and still in his pyjamas, sipping at the remains of a cup of liquid that was either coffee with tea bags in it, tea with coffee grounds in it, or possibly dirt with hints of both, Connor Temple stumbled down the hall of the flat he shared with his new wife and pounded on the bedroom door.

"Abby, are you in there? Come on, you've been getting ready for a really long time! Look, it's not funny, Abby, I've got to get to the ARC! Matt needs me!"

"Coming!" said a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

Connor groaned. He leaned heavily against the wall and did all he could not to sleep standing up. He felt like he'd been working on this damned time machine project forever... actually, he was in the midst of putting it together for the third time: Once for the initial test, which melted down and stranded Abby and Emily Merchant in the Pleistocene Epoch. Once to rebuild the machine and fix that mistake. And now, again, so they could... well, Connor didn't really know what horrific mistake they were on the verge of making this time. Matt was playing his cards very close. But Matt and Becker and even Jennifer Lewis-Miller, their new/old PR liaison, seemed all right with the plan, so... Connor's was not to reason why.

Well, that was untrue. Connor did a lot of reasoning... lately, more than he liked. Major Rivera, who appeared to be the field leader of whatever branch of Southfield they were confronting, claimed the group worshipped Helen Cutter like a prophet and hated Connor for failing to follow through on her plans. They wanted to create an edited timeline, a sort of flawless Perfect World, and to them, the first step in making a perfect world was removing Connor Temple. He was sort of the anti-Helen, which under normal circumstances he would have taken as a compliment, but since it came with powerful enemies...

Well, Connor was starting to realise he could be powerful, too. Unfortunately. With the help of a few clues from Matt's time-hopping future double, who kept appearing to the team, playing who knew what sort of game, he'd put the whole thing together and come up with a way to... well, maybe not to stop Southfield. But at least to protect Abby, and maybe the others, as well. The only trouble was, it required him to do all sorts of things he never would have imagined, not long ago... not least, lying to his wife...

Who suddenly threw open the door and stood before him in her wedding dress. Connor needed a second to form words- and not just because his brain wasn't entirely caffeinated. Abby looked incredible in the flowing white gown, form-fitting in all the right places but still elegant, beaming at him the way he'd always imagined she would...

"Well," she said, "what do you think?"

"It's- you- _wow_." Connor blinked. "Wait, am I allowed to see this?"

Abby arched an eyebrow. "We're already married, Connor. And so far into bad luck, I don't see how it could possibly matter. I just had to check the fit. I had to know... _something_ was going to go right."

Connor touched her hand. He knew the feeling well, so he tried his most charming smile. Then he remembered he wasn't charming, especially not in the early morning. It was the thought that mattered.

"Well, you can stop worrying about the wedding. My mum's coming to town in a couple of days, your brother Jack next week... and by the time the day arrives, Jess will be well enough to be a bridesmaid."

Abby's smile spoke of false optimism. They'd been giving each other that look a lot, of late. "I'm sure she will."

"And _you_," Connor grinned, "you are gonna be the most beautiful bride... basically ever."

"More beautiful than Sharon Clarke?" Abby teased.

The American agent- who worked with their friend Danny Quinn at the American version of the ARC- had been a running joke-slash-source of contention between them ever since Connor couldn't stop noticing her looks at their meeting. By this time, Connor thought he had the right answer. The way Abby looked in her wedding dress, it was easy to give.

"Sharon who?" he said. They kissed, much too briefly, and then separated. He continued, "You know, I'm glad we married early. I feel like we tricked the Universe."

Abby frowned. "What do you mean?"

Connor shrugged. "We've just had so many obstacles... remember when I didn't want to set a date? I guess I thought if we did, something would happen. That would be the day that wouldn't dawn."

"We made it happen," Abby said, "and we're not finished yet. I've made a list of people I trust to care for the menagerie. It's really happening, just like we planned. We're getting out of here- breaking free."

Connor felt slightly less sure about this- he worried more about the likelihood of carrying through the plan than the wisdom of attempting it- so he just said, "I hope you're right."

"We can discuss it later," Abby said. "Get to work."

Another quick kiss on the cheek, and he stumbled past her to retrieve a change of clothes. He could feel her watching him; he could imagine the forced smile melting off her face as he walked away. Abby always looked at him like that these days. She knew- Matt's double had told her- he didn't have long to live.

She didn't know what Connor knew: his death was likely the only chance the others had.

* * *

_"I couldn't admit it, but something about that phrase he used stuck with me... 'The day that wouldn't dawn.' Like we weren't meant to be, like it was unfair for us to escape alive. I worried about that. Back at the ARC, my friends had worries of their own..."_

Matt Anderson stood by the Hub, along with Emily Merchant, James Lester, and Jennifer Lewis-Miller, going quietly mad.

Actually, not that quietly. He was snapping at everyone, without regard for cause. He had so many causes to be angry with so many people, he'd given up sorting them out. The only thing he knew was, making things better had to start soon- today. And the Universe at large wasn't giving him a lot of help.

"Where the hell is Connor?" he growled. "We're wasting time!"

"Give him a chance," Jenny said. "He's been working eighteen-hour days since the attack."

"Until we have that machine of his, we have nothing. I can't get to Southfield's base unobserved, and this whole plan goes down the drain."

"Perhaps that's not the worst thing," Emily said quietly.

Matt frowned at her; she'd been avoiding him ever since Jess's injury, almost as though she held him responsible. The strange thing was, she wouldn't talk to him about it. Didn't seem to enjoy being in the same room with him, and reacted sceptically to everything he did. Matt didn't know what to think, except to suspect his double had made a dog's breakfast of things between them. But how was he supposed to apologise for something he hadn't done yet?

"I do have some good news," said Lester- a rare source of optimism, but Matt was desperate. "The Minister's granted me full discretion to deal with the Southfield matter. So long as we don't make _too_ big a mess, the government stands behind us."

To Matt's mind, that was a big_ if_, but it was something.

Jenny sighed. "What we need is Becker's return to full-time duty. We can't win a fight without him."

"Strange not to be able to count on Becker," Emily said. "It's like saying the sun might not rise."

Matt didn't like to say he thought the latter a distinct possibility. One thing was now clear; the attack on Jess had got it through his head, if his own double hadn't. The future promised by letting Southfield run wild was very bleak indeed, and it came closer by the day. It was time to shut them down, whatever the cost.

"Sunshine or rain," he said, "we go when the machine is ready."

* * *

Back at Connor and Abby's flat, the bride-to-be-again was carefully folding and putting away her wedding dress. She inhaled a sharp breath, and did not let it out- just froze for a moment out of time, perfectly still, as though her mind had gone some place else. But perhaps the story is best told by her own report:

_"The thing is, I think I knew it was a mistake... I'd been having these flash-forwards, skipping ahead to visions of the future._

_"I had one then, while I was putting away the dress. I saw the wedding ceremony I'd been planning... Me and Connor in front of all our friends, him finally dressed nicely with his hair combed, everything the way I pictured it. Jess was there, and my brother, and the team and Danny Quinn and even Lester... I remember distinctly, we were at this little church where my parents got married. Connor wanted to have the ceremony at the grand estate where Jenny had her wedding, but I talked him out of that. Wasn't my style. I just wanted simple and nice and lovely... and that's what it was. It was perfect._

_"Connor said 'I do,' and then the minister turned to me, and I smiled. I opened my mouth to reply, and then something crashed through the stained-glass window, showering us all in little bits of coloured glass. Everyone started screaming and shouting, but I just stood there, like I was frozen..._

_"It was a future predator. One of those horrible primate-bat things that always seem to take over in the worst versions of the future. It turned to me- turned that nightmare face right at me- and snarled. I saw a yellow, viscous secretion coating its skin and bubbling from its nose and mouth. It was infected with the plague, the Southfield plague... which connected its victims in a sort of group-mind. The plague Matt told me was likely to destroy the world. If it ever infected those things, that would do it, all right. That would be the end of everything. You couldn't stop a world full of future predators acting with one mind, with no goal other than to spread the plague..._

_"The predator leaped at me. I could see its claws gleaming in the sunlight... and then, somehow, I stepped away from myself. Like I could see the world around me. I could see what was coming._

_"The church spire was broken. There were predators climbing over every building, every automobile, killing or infecting everything in sight. I didn't just see the death of humanity. I saw the death of every independent creature on the planet, a future worse than hell. And then..."_

Abby gasped. The moment passed, but she found herself trembling, her hands shaking as she stored the dress in her closet and closed the door. She closed her eyes, tried to pretend it was just a vivid imagination, but it was much more than that. She had been there, she had seen it. The day that wouldn't dawn- the day that would never dawn again, because their failure had blotted out the sun. Abby shook her head and turned, fast-walked from the bedroom, intent on getting to the ARC, where she could do some good. If that was the future, it wasn't taking her or her friends without a fight; she was determined about that.

And the question kept nagging at her, the one she'd been mulling since Matt presented her with the scenario of Connor's death, which her actions alone could prevent...

_"What would you do?"_


	2. Act One

**Primeval 6.7** ("The Day That Wouldn't Dawn")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act One**

_"We had a guest at the ARC then, a guest who used to be one of us. Christopher Newman was a mercenary and spy who'd worked for Southfield in the past. Lester brought him in to help us fight them, and he betrayed us._

_"He set up the attack on Jess and left her to die. To say we held him responsible would be an understatement. Becker nearly killed him, and everyone else was tempted. But there was always something odd about Newman; there were all sorts of stories about him, from his MI6 past to my strange encounter with him in the Pleistocene. Someone said Jenny had discovered he was an alternate-reality version of Professor Cutter, our mentor from years back, but that sounded mad. _

_"Whatever the truth was about Newman, I didn't know it. Maybe he didn't, either."_

Chris Newman sat in a folding chair in a cell constructed from one of the pens in the menagerie, thinking thoughts that weren't his own. He thought about following a flying lizard through an anomaly and overlooking a sprawling prehistoric vista. He thought about fighting prehistoric worms in a high-rise office building. He thought about facing down his mad ex-wife in a burning building, just before she shot him dead.

Mostly, he thought about kissing a woman named Claudia Brown, who had never even existed. Newman understood the feeling.

Jennifer Lewis-Miller, the current incarnation of Claudia, had risked a lot to save him from Becker, to bring him back to the ARC on the grounds that he could help them beat Southfield. So far, he wasn't being a damn bit of help. His superiors at Southfield, anticipating his betrayal, had moved quickly to render any leads he'd given Matt Anderson obsolete. His contacts were missing or killed, all the recognition protocols had been changed, any outposts he knew about in the present were deserted.

All of which left Newman with a depressing paucity of cards to play, either tactically against Southfield or legally against the British government. The only things of value he still possessed were a modest bag of tricks- advanced EMD technology from the future, confiscated by Becker's men from his motel room- and one, last contact protocol he knew would get Southfield's attention: It was the one which said he'd fulfilled his primary mission and captured the former Claudia Brown for study—one step short of dissection. But even if Newman could concoct a decent stratagem to get to Southfield's base in the future using that protocol, it wouldn't work if he went in with backup from the ARC. They'd spot it coming a mile away and kill everyone.

So the ARC team would wait, and rely on Connor Temple's finicky time machine to get them where they needed to go... and die anyway, because Southfield had been all but salivating over that possibility from the beginning.

He'd tried making this clear to his guards, but for some reason they didn't trust him. He'd only gotten two of their colleagues killed, with a third's life in the balance. By Newman's standards, that was practically a declaration of friendship. People held their little grudges.

He tried turning to the fellow on duty now- Stanley? Standish? Something like that. He'd only sneered at Newman's questions, neither swearing nor threatening- which made him one of the more open-minded ones.

"Look, what's going on?" Newman demanded. "I'm supposed to be consulted before they take any action. Anderson promised me."

"You'd have to take that up with him, sir," said the guard stiffly. "I'm afraid he's indisposed."

"What about Becker, then?" Newman hissed. The captain of security had never liked him, and since what happened to Jess, he'd been one tick short of murderous. But if he could be convinced there was a way to _save_ Jess...

"Captain Becker is also indisposed."

Newman rose from his chair so suddenly, the guard went for his weapon. "Look, I'm not playing games, dammit! They have no idea what they're dealing with! They'll need help!"

The guard peered at Newman as though he was a distasteful sort of bug. "Help from _you_? I really doubt it."

Newman sighed. "All right, I'll guess what they're doing! They're taking the fight to Southfield. They're sending Anderson to the base in his timeline using Temple's machine. Am I close? Good. Now get them for me so I can tell them exactly how daft that idea is!"

The guard didn't move. "When they want you, I'm sure they'll send for you. Until then, shut it."

Newman fought past a surge of anger to make a wild stab at _reasonable_. "How about Jenny Lewis? She's a PR representative, barely even works here; she's notessential to the fight. And I know she'll talk to me, so get her down here if you value the lives of everyone in this place!" When the guard didn't move immediately, he used his best _official business_ voice and snapped, "DO it, damn you!"

Finally, blessedly, the guard moved to the intercom. Newman dared to believe things might get a bit better after he talked to Jenny. From where he stood, it was hard to see how they could get any worse...

* * *

Connor entered the ARC's control centre at a dead run, and kept running until he reached the Hub. Lester wasn't any more disapproving of his tardiness than usual, but Matt was notably glowering at him.

"Sorry, sorry!" Connor said. "I know I've been getting here earlier, but I did something weird last night. I actually fell asleep."

"It's fine, Connor," Emily said quickly, before Matt could interject anything else. "If you ask me, we're moving far too quickly."

Matt frowned at her. Connor knew that expression- he wore the exact same look every time he wanted to disagree with Abby, but feared the consequences would be too dire. At any rate, the dilemma stymied the team leader long enough for Lester to speak first; barely an improvement.

"Have you finished it?"

"Eh... I_ nearly _have. Should be today. Matt can come down to my lab if he likes, and wait out the final adjustments."

"Fine," said Matt. "Let's go."

He started walking, brusque and intensely focused. Connor stopped him with a hand on his arm. Fishing around in the pocket of his jacket, he came up with a handful of small, black, metallic rectangles the same basic shape and weight as ATM cards.

"Here," he said. "Take one of these."

Matt frowned. "What is it?"

"Temporal inhibitor. Got the idea from the Pleistocene mission data and worked it up on my break time, not that I've been taking breaks. It protects your memory from timeline changes."

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Oh, lovely. _Now_ you invent one!"

Connor winced. He'd forgotten Jenny Lewis had been waiting literally all her existence for such a device. He started to apologise, but was interrupted by the chime of her mobile phone.

"Yes?" Jenny said. "He's doing what? All right, I'll be right there."

"Newman?" Lester guessed, as she tucked the mobile phone away.

"He wants to talk."

"He may have another lead about Southfield," Emily said. "Perhaps we should postpone until-"

"His last six leads have come to nothing," Matt said. "We've wasted too much time on him already. If this is gonna work, we'll have to take Southfield by surprise; the longer we hang on to Newman, the worse the odds become."

"I understand that," said Emily, "but l don't think acting hastily will-"

"We've let these people set the agenda for months now, and look how it's turned out. If you don't care for this plan, what exactly do you suggest?"

Emily set her jaw and said nothing; Connor winced in sympathy for both of them. For Emily, because Matt's tone was harsher and more resentful than warranted. For Matt, because, well... he knew _that_ look on the girlfriend's face, too, and it was just so very bad.

Jenny didn't want any more part in the argument than Connor did; she cleared her throat and turned. Matt used this chance to break the stalemate.

"If he has anything important to say, relay it to us on coms," he told Jenny. Then, turning to Connor, he jerked his chin toward the door. "Come on."

Connor looked back at Emily; even Lester rested a hand on her elbow, an almost sensitive gesture of support. But in the end, the only thing they could do was follow Matt's lead; it had always worked before. They exited the control centre, after which Matt and Connor turned in one direction, Jenny in the other...

"I'm not kidding!" she called over her shoulder. "I want one of those cards!"

Connor couldn't help but smile, and good thing, as it turned out; it was the last thing he was to find funny for quite some time...

* * *

Abby Maitland-Temple sat in the observation room, with three of her favourite subjects duly signed out from the menagerie: Rex, who winged his way around the room as freely as he ever did the Forest of Dean, and Sid and Nancy, the pair of diictodons she and Connor had adopted. She was presently absorbed with giving them a medical check-up, in the wake of the chaos that had gripped the menagerie when Newman released all the creatures some weeks ago.

"There you are, Sid." She smiled at the male diictodon. "That claw's healed really well. You're just fine."

Sid all but rolled over and fetched her slippers for her. Abby stroked the small creature affectionately.

"You're all gonna be just fine," she said. "I think you'll really like Taggart; he's got a better rapport with creatures than anyone I know. Well, besides me..."

Feeling jealous, Nancy nosed her way into the mix to be pet. Abby's thoughts drifted away, to a simpler time when keeping the diictodons from eating any vital documents had been her and Connor's primary concern.

"You understand why I have to do this, right? I mean, you'd understand if you could. You're social creatures; you wouldn't be happy without each other..." She sighed. "Look, it's not for long. With all Connor's research, they're gonna be able to send you back to your own time really soon."

The diictodons didn't have the faintest clue what she was saying, but it seemed to make them happy enough. Abby turned her attention to her final companion, the hardest of all...

"And you," she said to Rex, "come here."

He spread his wings and soared across the room to her, landing on her arm, just the way he'd done that first day at the Home Office, when no one else had been able to retrieve him. Rex nuzzled her arm, chirping away, oblivious to all that had happened and was still to come.

"You are my absolute favourite. I'm gonna miss you more than all the rest put together." She smiled. "Connor thinks I should sneak you out in my pack; I really thought about it. But that wouldn't be fair, would it? Dragging you along, without the ARC's resources, if you got sick or hurt? And you being the only one who didn't get to go home? I love you too much for that, Rex. That's why I have to say goodbye..."

Rex hopped off her shoulders and flew a long loop around the room, one more time, while Abby smiled and laughed. When she reached out to retrieve him, she glanced through the observation window at the menagerie below...

_"That's when I saw it. Another flash-forward, more mundane than the last one, but even worse for me: The ARC was broken, all the pens in the menagerie ruined, and the creatures... there wasn't much left of the creatures. Future predators swarmed everywhere, devouring what they could and infecting everything that still moved. It was all lost, all the animals we'd saved, all the work we'd done for six years... destroyed, like that._

_"I didn't know why it kept happening, but everything the flash-forwards had predicted had been right so far. It was time I took precautions... and past time for a talk with Connor."_

Abby snapped out of her reverie and started moving immediately. She ran to the pack she'd left lying against the opposite wall and summoned Rex. Tucking him securely into the pack, she slung its straps over her shoulders.

"Stay in there," she murmured to Rex. "Whatever happens, just stay."

Rex was profoundly unaffected; it wasn't the first time he'd travelled this way, so he immediately curled up and went to sleep. Abby wished she could feel so peaceful; but as with Connor's humour, peace was to evade her for a long while. She hurried out the door and started running toward her husband's lab.

* * *

Connor, at that moment, had problems of his own. The last few calculations for the time machine were giving him fits... particularly the upgrades he was trying to complete, which he hesitated even to mention.

The thing was, there _was_ one other way to the Southfield base. Connor could send Matt there rather easily. The trick was doing it in such a way that it didn't make things worse. He could, for example, end up inadvertently starting the very cycle they were all worried about, culminating in the end of the world. Or he could damage time itself, so that Tuesday followed Wednesday- or 1412 followed 2013!

No, this had to be approached carefully, and all of Connor's most brilliant ideas were best saved until there was no other option. They were doomsday scenarios, and right now doomsday was something he preferred to keepat arm's length...

But that didn't mean he couldn't take precautions.

"How much longer?" Matt asked, after he'd been tinkering for a while.

"I'm just stabilising it! With the data from the first trip, I can make it safe to travel to the same point in time repeatedly."

Matt hissed. "What good is that now?"

"Well, for one thing, if something goes wrong and we have to send help, we won't be risking the Universe to do it."

"Look, Connor, I appreciate your concern..." Matt paced a circle around the tiny lab and ended up facing him again. "I explained the need for urgency, right? Do you want to find out what sort of reception Southfield will prepare if they see us coming? These are the people who hurt Jess!"

"Don't talk to me about losing friends!" Connor snapped, suddenly annoyed. "I've lost more friends to this than you have. The best of them ran off alone to do something heroic. You'll go when I'll say it's ready, and not before."

He thought Matt would respond angrily, and then he'd have to decide whether to disobey a direct order. But his team leader only stood back and looked at him, an odd sort of smile on his face.

"What?" Connor said.

"You remember when I said Cutter was proud of you?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, so am I."

Connor turned aside, to hide the blushing. He supposed he had grown up a bit in the last six years, quite against his will. But he felt sort of guilty accepting praise when he knew his boundless curiosity about anomalies had played more than a small part in getting them into this mess.

He only hoped he could get them out of it, as well...

* * *

Jennifer Lewis-Miller stepped into the menagerie awkwardly, and not just because she could feel that damn _Kaprosuchus_ watching her. She'd been hesitant to visit Newman during his interrogations; she couldn't stop looking at him and seeing Nick Cutter, and that wasn't fair to anyone. Not to her friends, for it made her go easier on a murderer than he probably deserved. Not to Newman, for she kept expecting him to be something he wasn't. Not to Nick, for he deserved better than to be remembered for the handful of his memories that got loose in time and stuck to a psychopath.

Most of all, it wasn't fair to herself or her husband. Michael hadn't spoken to her when she came home last night. He knew very well her mind was somewhere else, and he probably had a good idea where that was. She only hoped her heart wasn't somewhere else as well, although at this point, she wasn't sure Michael would care.

This place had destroyed everything she was, once upon a time. It had nearly destroyed her a second time, when Nick died and she had to leave before she lost her mind She wanted to help everyone through this difficult time- even Newman, if she could- but Jenny couldn't help thinking she'd simply come back a third time so the ARC could finish her off.

She had to keep her distance, for everyone's sake. Easier said than done.

She approached the cell, saw Newman feigning sleep on his bunk. She thought he was watching her, however- he might have been worse than the crocodile. She cleared her throat.

"Well, I'm here. What did you want?"

Newman didn't even open his eyes. "The pleasure of your company, Claudia Brown."

If there hadn't been bars between them, Jenny would have slapped him. "Do you think that's funny?"

Disgusted and exhausted with this terrible human being, Jenny started to turn away- but Newman sat up quickly, a new seriousness in him.

"Tell Anderson to call it off."

"Call off what?" Jenny said, a beat too slow.

Newman approached the bars. "Matt Anderson's going to try to infiltrate Southfield's base in the future. The one you found by scanning me."

Jenny hesitated, made a decision. "Yes. Matt won't stop. He holds himself responsible for what happened to Jess- ironic, considering present company."

"Look, there are other ways. Give me a chance to-"

"You've had multiple chances," Jenny said. "You've yet to make yourself useful, and I have to say, as the person who put herself on the line for you, that doesn't make me look very good. But forget that- the point is, Matt's right. We've allowed this to go on too long. We had all sort of warnings, and we didn't heed them. We didn't put the puzzle together in time. We were too trusting."

Newman's lip twisted in chagrin; he looked away. He knew very well that jab was aimed at him, and it was entirely warranted.

At length, he tried again. "I know how these people think! Do you not understand, it's exactly what they want you to do?"

"We're hardly the only ones doing what Southfield wants."

That one was for Jess. Newman grasped the bars with one hand, while the other hand curled into a fist at his side- the picture of impotent frustration.

"I'm sorry about that..."

"Yes," Jenny said. "Now you've been caught, you're so _very_ sorry."

"Jenny..." he said. His whole tone and manner changed. For a moment, there was something familiar in his eyes. "I really am."

Those moments when he became the better man were the ones that hurt most of all. Jenny turned aside quickly.

"What difference does it make?" she murmured. "You're not him and I'm not her. We're nothing but a couple of leftover memories."

"Yeah..." Newman said. "But maybe there's still a chance for us to be good ones."

It was so much like something Nick would have said, Jenny wanted to cry. She smiled instead, and met Newman's eyes. She decided she could do worse than hearing him out.

She'd certainly done more ridiculous things in her time at the ARC...

* * *

"All right," Connor said. "I think we're just about ready for a test run."

Matt Anderson sprang to attention as though returning from a faraway place. He'd been thinking about his future... his father's plans... the predators, those awful giant-bug things. Everything he'd left behind, everything he'd hoped was destroyed forever. Everything he was about to pop into the middle of again.

It couldn't be helped. Matt was starting to understand exactly what had happened, why his future double had been popping in and out, first a year ago, then on a semi-regular basis for months. The thing was, Matt was almost certain some of what had happened- even what had happened to Jess- was his own design. Gideon Anderson had waited decades to avert the apocalypse, and he'd taught his son a thing or two about long-term strategy. There were bits of this chess game Matt nearly recognised... but who the opponent was or what precisely constituted checkmate, he couldn't say.

At least, not yet. He nodded to Connor. "Southfield's had us under surveillance. A test run might alert them. We go now."

Connor sighed. "Can't we at least ring up Becker?"

"Becker'll be here for the fight. This is just a recon. If all goes well, I'll be in and out before he could get back here."

"The words 'if this goes well' don't really seem to suit the ARC..."

Matt had to laugh; it was a fair point. He clasped the other man's shoulder. "Connor. We started this, and we're gonna finish it."

That was the right tactic; Connor felt as responsible as Matt himself did. He stood at the controls of the time machine base unit, while Matt stood a few metres away, between its matching transmitters.

Connor nodded to him. "Good luck."

Matt smiled; he wasn't sure if he was being genuinely warm or trying to project confidence. Probably both. Even more probably, it didn't matter. Connor worked the controls. Swirls of golden light appeared at the edges of Matt's vision, then swallowed up his world...

Then he was somewhere else, choking on filthy sand and toxic chemicals. Orange dunes and uneven ridges spread out as far as he could see in all directions, dashing themselves against the base of equally barren cliffs on the horizon. The air was hot and dry and dead; it hurt to breathe, even when he got as much oxygen as dirt.

Home, sweet home. Matt coughed and wheezed and looked for shelter, but after a few moments, the sandstorm blessedly abated. If it had continued any longer, it would have poisoned him. He climbed to to top of the nearest ridge and gazed down into a sort of valley it formed with the dunes...

And there it was. A sparkling metallic outpost, silver and grey, prefabricated design. Newer and better-maintained than anything humanity had left behind in this landscape. Southfield had placed their home base in the one place they assumed anyone would be mad to visit: Six months past the end of the world. He studied the layout, searching for guard posts, likely routes of patrol, and nodded to himself in satisfaction...

"Connor," he said into coms, "I'm inside their defences. No sign I've been noticed yet."

He waited; no response. Then, a loud screech of feedback in his ear. Matt took out the earpiece in annoyance...

"It won't work," said a voice behind him. "They're jamming your coms."

Matt turned in exasperation, thinking _Do I really sound like that? _

Sure enough, he found himself face-to-face with his own future double, the very same bastard version of himself who'd set him on this path to oblivion- his scarred, dishevelled, slightly mad-looking doppelgänger.

"They can't be jamming!" Matt said. "That's why I pushed so hard to get here- so they wouldn't be able to-"

"You don't really think you're ahead of them, do you?" his future self raged. "Please tell me I"m not that _thick_!"

The wind kicked up again, howling all around them as the two sides of Matt Anderson squared off to finally get a few things settled amongst himself.

"They let you come here," future-Matt said. "They think you might be useful alive. You've only got a minute."

"Then use it," Matt said. "Tell me about these people. I understand they're part of Helen Cutter's fan club, but I don't understand _why_. A perfect world- what is that? Who decides what that means? They must want something specific. What is it?"

Future-Matt shrugged. "At this point in time, they want Jenny Lewis- which is sort of funny."

"Why?"

"Because they're wrong." Matt's future self glanced down on the outpost and shook his head. "Do you know the definition of the word _anomaly_? The dictionary definition?"

Matt frowned. "Not off the top of my head."

"You will. You'll memorise it by the time you're me. It means 'Something different... abnormal... not easily classified.' That's Jenny."

"Because of Claudia Brown, you mean?"

His future self made a face; dissatisfaction at his own slowness, Matt judged. But then, he literally had only himself to blame.

"They think she's the first anomaly. The reason behind Convergence."

"Convergence is a natural phenomenon," Matt objected.

"No," said the double. "It's a natural_ reaction_- nature's way of coping with the damage we've done to time, and I mean _all_ of us. Cutter and Helen, Connor and Philip, Southfield. The anomalies are like volcanoes erupting, letting off the pressure. Keeping the timeline intact. That's why there are so many more of them now than at other points in history. Time _shattered_, and the anomalies spread out in both directions, forward and back. More of them closer to the point of impact."

Matt took all this in and decided to believe himself- for the sake of argument, at least. "So Jenny is the point of impact?"

"They think so. That's why they've been studying her, and people like her, who were changed by time. But they're wrong."

"Then what's the center-point?" Matt asked. "What started all this?"

His double looked at him and laughed. "We did."

Matt was so stunned, he couldn't even think, let alone respond. To think all the time-travel, all the anomalies, all the things he'd been doing all his life could have been a problem _he_ created- the perfect self-sustaining loop. But that would mean everything he'd ever done in his whole life was wrong, or at least... not what he thought it was...

"Remember your fear right before you stopped New Dawn?" future-Matt continued. "That you might disappear if you changed history? But you didn't. You created me instead."

"But... I don't..."

"Think about it. Claudia disappeared when Jenny was created. An extreme reaction, sure, but still one solid, sustainable chain of events. You didn't do that. You became two men- the man who changed the future, and the man who went back because it hadn't changed. You opened the way to alternate Universes, _millions _of 'em, the guts of the Universe spilling out."

"What about Southfield?" Matt asked.

"Southfield was nothing until then. A lot of crackpots and cultists. In the original timeline, their research was fruitless. _We_ gave them a source of power to study. We created them as a threat."

Matt shook his head, simultaneously unable to believe his own story and unable to doubt it. He looked at himself helplessly. "Then what can I _do_?"

Future-Matt shrugged. "Put time back together. Don't create me. Have no part in the future."

That last part sounded particularly ominous. "You mean... die?"

"I wish that were the answer," his double said. "At this point, that just deepens the paradox. I can't_ only_ die. I've got to... undo what I've done. Create a new destiny- one single, stable timeline."

Matt shook his head, unable to wrap his mind around it. "How do I do that?"

"Well, you're a bright lad... at least, I've always thought so. You'll figure it out."

The golden glow again, and the future-Matt began to fade. He rushed himself, trying to grab the double and physically keep him here to answer more questions.

"NO!"

Surprisingly, his future self obeyed orders, solidifying suddenly and slapping himself on the back with a smile. "Oh, one more thing... you're about to have a really bad day. I'm sorry."

He faded, leaving Matt alone in the barren future landscape- but not for long. Even as he whirled about in confusion, about a dozen Southfield operatives came tramping over every dune and out from under every rock. Worse, they weren't alone- they were accompanied by half a dozen growling, hissing future predators, mutated and infected and just unpleasant, but apparently content to be restrained by Southfield men on leashes.

Worst of all was the grinning face of Major Rivera in the lead- the traitor who'd already died once, who'd been about half a second from shooting Connor in the head, and who now beamed at Matt like an old friend, even as he relieved him of his EMD pistol and took him prisoner...


	3. Act Two

**Primeval 6.7** ("The Day That Wouldn't Dawn")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Two**

The future predators kept glowering at Matt as he handed over his weapon, although of course that was mostly perception. The damn things didn't really have _eyes_; they hunted by sound, so who could tell what they were glowering at? Still, they definitely seemed to take an unhealthy interest in Matt, even if they didn't try to slip the control of their Southfield masters. Maybe they could hear his heart hammering away in his chest; Matt imagined he could.

To his captors, he kept his tone light, even matching Rivera's smile. "No offence, but you've got the ugliest dogs I've ever seen."

"You like 'em? Want a closer look?" Rivera snapped the leash he held- it had an odd handle, like the reins of a carriage but with a couple of buttons set into it. His predator approached to within a few inches of Matt, hissing and snarling. "Oh, look, he likes you, too. All I'd have to do is flip a switch..."

"Do it, then." Matt steeled himself. "I don't have all day."

"We do," said Rivera. "We have, literally, all the time in the world. Why would we waste an asset like Matt Anderson, Man of the Future?"

Matt blinked, surprised to realise the Southfield man knew his history, but he supposed he shouldn't be shocked by anything any more. He nodded at the predator. "If you're hoping to control those things, you should know it's a fool's game. Your friend Leek found that out the hard way."

"Oliver Leek tried to manipulate them with crude technology. The biological solution is so much more elegant, don't you think? They're our eyes and ears... if you'll forgive the expression. A living part of the defences of this place. I could have him kiss you on the cheek, and it wouldn't even spread the plague... unless I wanted it to."

Matt frowned at the salivating predator. "Not on the first date."

Major Rivera laughed. "Well played, Anderson. But you've got to be a little impressed, right?"

"That you've created monsters?" Matt shrugged. "I've seen it before. I've seen them up close. I've seen what they do. If you think your silly plague will hold them in check-"

"You still don't get it, do you?" The Southfield man took a step forward, becoming annoyed. "We didn't invent the plague to control the predators. It was a mistake; Elizabeth Evans was as horrified by it as you were. But we're playing a different game now, you see. Within two days of your report on the Southfield outbreak, we knew about it. We dispatched teams into the past and future to ensure the plague would not wipe out the human race. Then we located a timeline where the plague had already been neutralised and brought back a cure. Now it's nothing more than a convenient tranquilliser. Imagine doing that with every disease in the world."

"It won't work." Matt shook his head. "Nature will out. The plague does break free. We know that because I came back in time to stop it. You can't control it, it can't control them... this whole project of yours is a chain of very bad decisions, one misstep away from blowing up in your face!"

"You're so afraid of a little innovation." Rivera shook his head. "I say, when life gives you lemons..."

"Drown the world in citric acid?" Matt suggested.

"Well..." said Rivera, with an air of indulgent disappointment. "I can see this is going to be a longer argument. The good news is, we have time to win it. We always win in the end. Take him."

A soldier stuck a rifle in Matt's back and pushed him forward. He allowed himself to be led toward the base. Maybe, just maybe, he would have a chance to do what he'd come to do: analyse Southfield, find a weakness, and then somehow escape to warn the team.

Thinking about that was a lot more pleasant than contemplating the possibility he'd just wrecked their only chance to fight back...

* * *

To say James Lester was just beginning to worry would have been inaccurate; as best he could determine, Lester had been worried for six consecutive years, and counting. But his worries were just beginning to focus on the possibility Matt Anderson's reconnaissance of the Southfield base might have gone wrong when Jenny Lewis burst into the command centre and approached the Hub at a run.

"Where's Matt? He hasn't gone through yet, has he?"

"Several minutes ago," Lester said.

Beside him, Emily Merchant looked unhappy- or, perhaps,_ more_ unhappy, just as Lester was more worried. "We've been awaiting word, but there seems to be another problem with coms. Is your future science always this unreliable?"

"When it's a trap," Jenny said, "yes."

Emily reacted with horror for Matt's safety, but Lester contented himself with a frown turned in Jenny's direction. "You have this from Newman? You're certain you believe him?"

Jenny took a deep breath, hesitated, but said distinctly, "Yes."

Emily turned away, seething. "I knew this would happen! Matt feels so responsible for what's happened- they were counting on that! I suppose I didn't help matters... we've got to do something!"

Jenny said, "Perhaps Connor's machine could-"

"Um, guys?" said the voice of that same Connor, via the intercom. "Bit of a problem. The signal that's jamming Matt's coms? I'm detecting it in here."

"Here?" Lester said. "But he's years into the future. How is it possible to detect a signal that hasn't been sent yet?"

"It's not," said Connor's weary voice. "Unless... they're riding a residual trace back to the time machine. Using it to keep a portal slightly open."

Emily cleared her throat. "As I recall our experience with artificial anomalies, isn't that dangerous?"

"Um... yeah. Really, really dangerous. If it opens, it'll allow them access to the ARC- well. What's left of it. The thing is, I can't seem to turn it off..."

"I'll be right down," Emily said, and turned toward the door.

Jenny caught her before she got very far. "What do you mean, you? What good can you do?"

"If there's a portal opening, there might be a chance to get back through it and warn Matt. I'm the logical choice. Becker's unavailable, Abby's clearly distracted, Connor's needed here, and you're the one they're trying to kidnap. And, well..." Emily directed a sceptical glance at Lester. "Please."

Lester straightened his tie and adjusted his collar. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Look, I have to go," Emily said. "It's Matt. Someone's got to help him; he'd do it for us. And I can't let things end between us... like that."

Her eyes were all but pleading. There was a time, not so long ago, when Lester would have found the continual emotional entanglements amongst his staff rather distasteful. He'd come to understand they were one of the great strengths of the ARC. These people would do anything for each other... and they might well have to, before this was done.

He nodded to Emily. "Go. Hurry."

Emily ran from the room. Jenny turned a look of concern on Lester.

"If it is a trap, feeding more of us into it isn't the solution."

Lester frowned. "You have a better idea?"

Jenny released the deep breath she'd been holding. "As a matter of fact..."

* * *

When Abby got to Connor's lab, there was a small pinpoint of spiralling golden light stuck between the two transmitters of his time machine. He was working frantically at the main console with an air of grave concern. He didn't even notice Abby in the room until she cleared her throat.

"Connor, we have to talk. I've been having these-"

"It's a bad time, Abby," he said shortly. "_Really_ bad."

"But you don't understand, this has to do with what's been going on. I've been-" she performed a double take at the golden light, which seemed to have just grown larger before her eyes. "Is that an anomaly?"

"Er- no," Connor said. "It's a portal through time."

Abby frowned. "Sounds like an anomaly. What's the difference?"

"Err... well. An anomaly doesn't... blow up."

Abby took another look at her husband, as well. That wasn't concern she saw in his eyes. That was carefully controlled panic. The same started to gnaw at Abby's stomach._ I've seen this bit before, haven't I? Connor's lab blowing up..._

"You should go down to the menagerie," Connor said, "make sure the creatures are secure. And... make yourself secure, too."

"It won't help," Abby said, her voice sounding hollow and listless in her own ears as she recalled her most recent vision. "The menagerie will be wrecked, too..."

"Well, then, be _somewhere_! Anywhere, Abby. Not here."

"I'm not gonna leave you!" Abby snapped, struggling to make sense of it all. "This is- I know it will end badly!"

Connor looked at her. He knew it, too. "You can't do anything here. Have you got your wedding ring?"

Abby touched the metal band on her finger. "'Course."

"Good. Whatever happens, keep it safe. Don't lose it. Understand?"

Shocked by his suddenly dire manner, the resignation in his voice and posture, Abby reached out and grabbed her husband's shoulder. "Connor, are you even listening? I'm trying to tell you, I've seen this! You, and your lab, and-"

The door slammed open; Emily entered at a fast walk, looking as dire as Connor with an EMD rifle from the armoury slung over her shoulder. She looked from one of them to the other, perhaps wondering if she was interrupting, then shrugged. No time, either way.

She got as far as the new anomaly, now the size of a volleyball and still growing. Emily blinked at it, then turned. "Is that supposed to be there?"

"Not exactly," Connor sighed.

Before Abby could change the subject back to their imminent deaths, the whole room shook with a tremor like an earthquake. Shelves of sensitive computer equipment rumbled ominously, some smaller bits falling to the ground. Abby held onto Connor until it subsided.

"What was that?"

"A shock wave," Connor said, "sort of. They'll only get worse. You should both leave, right now."

"No," said Emily. She nodded at the anomaly. "You're sending me back to Matt."

Abby looked from her to the portal. At the rate it was growing, it would be person-sized in moments. Which did not alter the fact that she thought Emily quite mad.

"Through that thing?" she said. "Is that even possible?"

"Really good question," Connor said, "and probably not one we should test in the field."

"Well, I'm going," Emily said, "one way or another."

Another shock wave. This time Emily reached out to Abby and the women steadied each other, while Connor ricocheted off his work table. As soon as the shock wave began to subside, he popped up and started pressing buttons.

He looked to Emily. "If you're determined to do it, it has to be now. Right now."

"Connor, you're mad!" Abby said. She was beginning to fear for_ everyone's _sanity, including her own. "You can't actually send her through-"

"We don't have time to argue!" Emily snapped. She nodded to Connor. "Is there any chance it will work?"

"Well... I mean... a_ chance,_ sure. They're pirating our signal, so I can steal it back; done it a thousand times. Well, not really, I've never done it, but the theory's sound." Connor trailed off, sighed, looked at Emily seriously. "It's really dangerous."

"It's for Matt. I'll take any risk." The anomaly was just about Emily's size now. She took a step toward it, and stopped. Turning back to them curiously, she said, "Tell me one thing: Was he worth it?"

"Who?" Abby asked.

"Professor Cutter. That's what all this amounts to in the end, his theories of time versus Helen's. Don't misunderstand, I'm with you and Matt for the duration. But I never knew him, and we've taken so many risks. Was he worth it?"

Connor and Abby shared a look. Abby smiled at her husband and nodded; this was his question to answer.

"Yeah," Connor said. "Yeah, he was worth it. People do so many things to hurt this planet... so many stupid, thoughtless things. But we wish to be greater, and we can be. We just need a little guidance to find our capacity for good."

Emily arched an eyebrow. "Cutter said that?"

"Eh... no. Jor-El, father of Superman. But it might as well have been Cutter."

Emily smiled; in the last few months, her growing friendship with Connor had been one of the few bright spots at the ARC. Even Abby was becoming nostalgic for the weekends when the pair of them would monopolise her television with the endless stream of sci-fi films and shows Connor considered essential viewing for parties new to the 21st Century.

"We never did get to comic books," Emily said. "I really wanted to."

"Me, too," said Connor, smiling sadly.

Emily took a deep breath and addressed him with dignity. "Permission to depart, Mr. Temple?"

"Permission granted," he said, "Lady Merchant."

Emily turned and squared her shoulders in front of the anomaly. Connor's fingers flew over the base unit, and finally he nodded to her. With a final smile, she stepped through the golden portal-

Just as another shock wave ripped though the lab, powerful enough to knock both Connor and Abby off their feet. Abby hit her head on one of the endless shelves of junk, and her vision swam...

* * *

Jess hadn't opened her eyes since the morning; indeed, her vitals continued to drop, and Becker heard one of the doctors murmur the word "coma." There didn't seem to be anything official yet, so he just stood watch at her bedside, waiting, trying to remember how to pray...

His mobile phone chimed; Becker felt a bit silly for fearing it would disturb Jess, but the mind didn't work rationally at such times.

"I'll be right back, love." He squeezed Jess's hand and took the call out into the corridor.

He recognised the incoming number, but struggled to care. Still... duty. He answered by rote, "Becker."

"We need you back here right now," said the voice of Jenny Lewis. "Everything's gone wrong."

"What?" Becker blinked. "Damn it, I told Matt not to go until-"

A nurse ran past him in the corridor and burst through the doors of Jess's room. A moment later, a doctor, with more nurses and a crash cart. Becker peered through the window and saw someone performing CPR. His spine froze to ice.

"I'll call you back," he said to Jenny, and ran for the room himself.

* * *

Emily Merchant stepped out of time, emerging into a swirling hell of brown and orange sand. She covered her mouth as best she could; hefting her borrowed rifle, she trudged through the wasteland in search of Matt.

On some level, she knew she was acting rashly now, as well. But Emily felt she couldn't leave Matt alone. She'd been so angry at him when his future self had abandoned Jess to her fate, she'd never stopped to think why he was doing this- all of it. What it must have been like for Matt, reliving the time loop so many thousands of times, and why he endured.

He did it because no one else would. Because Matt Anderson was always the person who shouldered the responsibility for the whole world; that was his life. He'd never been able to break with that pattern, never had the chance to pursue anything _he_ wanted. Matt was always_ saving_ someone. Now, at last, Southfield had used that tendency against him, goaded him into making one sacrifice too many. They knew Matt would come; he was first in line for hopeless causes.

Well, in Emily's opinion, it was long past time someone saved _him_, and she was just the transplanted Victorian lunatic to undertake the task. She spotted footprints in the sand ahead of her, nearly buried by another round of storms, and quickened her pace before she lost them.

Before long, she heard voices up ahead, somewhere in the valley below her. She slowed, then began to creep on hands and knees as the voices became more distinct:

"You should feel honoured, Anderson. Not counting hired scum like Newman, you're the first guest we've had here. The first to see the new world."

"Really? You're such charming people, it's a shame you don't have more friends..."

Emily grinned when she recognised the second voice. _Matt, absolutely_. But from the number of heavy footfalls she heard tramping through the sand, Emily guessed he was badly outnumbered. In point of fact, so was she, but that didn't bother her so much; she'd never been one to trifle with odds.

She crept along the dune, found a sheltered spot from whence she could look down into the valley and see the Southfield people about to cross her path: they were flanked by future predators, with Matt and the now-notorious Major Rivera in the lead. Emily shrugged the rifle off her shoulder, selected her first target, and took careful aim...

* * *

Connor scrambled to his feet, bruised and aching in a dozen places, and helped Abby to stand. She wasn't hurt, just dazed, and shook it off immediately. But this was only the beginning, as Connor knew too well. He looked in her eyes, hoping she couldn't see how terrified he was. He was terrified to die, terrified of leaving her to face danger alone... but most of all, he was terrified of letting down his friends, of having escaped from Helen Cutter and New Dawn and everything else, only to let the world be swallowed up in his own time-travel mess.

_If I get out of this, I'm going travelling. Somewhere with a beach. Just me and Abby. I swear, I'll never meddle with time again. I'll never even wear a watch. Just let me have this one. Let everyone be all right, please. Let her be safe..._

He hurried back to work on the time machine with Abby hovering besides him, nervous but still not comprehending the full extent of the danger. She stared at the ever-expanding portal, her hand brushing against Connor's arm as though she was afraid to let him go.

"Come on, come on..." he murmured, as one trick after another was countered by whoever or whatever was pirating his signal. "Work, dammit!"

Abby frowned. "Can't you just turn off the power?"

Connor gestured vaguely at the portal. "Right now, the power's the only thing keeping it stable. Turn it off, or try to smash the machine, and it'll wipe out the ARC!"

"Well, what can we do? There's got to be something!"

Connor glanced back at her- that beautiful face, contorted with worry for him. They'd come so far together, faced so many dangers. He didn't want to say the next words. So he smiled instead.

"Yup. All right. I need to talk to Lester, but coms in here have gone mad. Get on the intercom, tell him I think I can keep it localised."

"Right!" Abby said. She ran to the intercom switch, located in the corridor just outside the lab- and a beat too late, turned back to Connor, frowning. "Wait. What does that mean, localised?"

"It means I love you," Connor said. "Remember that."

Before Abby could react, he ran to the door and slammed it shut between them, locking it with his personal codes. Nothing could get through that door- if he was lucky, and clever, it would hold back even a sizeable blast.

There was a window set into the door; he could see Abby's face, the brief look of chagrin, followed by betrayal and then terror. Abby ran to the door; Connor pressed his hand against the glass, all but touching hers, and smiled.

_If you've got to go,_ he thought, _go like Spock._

"Connor, no!" Abby said. She began pounding on the door with both fists. "No, stop! You can't!"

Connor turned back to the time machine and cracked his knuckles. "All right, you bastards. Hack into _my_ work and use it against my friends? Oh, I really don't think so. Let's see what you've got..."

He began working on the machine even more furiously, his fingers almost a blur as he fought desperately to cut off Southfield's access and contain the portal. He went into the Zone, the programming zone where there was nothing but himself and the machine and the cool, sensible numbers. There _was_ someone banging on the door, but only very distantly, and there just wasn't time to think about anything but what he had to do.

"_Connor_!" Abby cried, but he barely even heard.

* * *

Becker forced his way into Jess's room, past an orderly who tried to hold him back, and saw the doctors and nurses all working on her, the steady rhythms of resuscitation. One of them had a defibrillator with paddles, exactly the kind you saw on medical shows.

"Sir!" the orderly said. "I'm sorry, but you can't be in here."

"The hell I can't!"

"The internal bleeding is back," said one of the nurses. "Pulse and blood pressure dropping..."

"We're losing her, dammit!"

Becker tried again to push past the orderly, a burly fellow who managed to fight him to a draw. "Sir, you can't..."

"You don't understand," Becker said, "I have to..."

_This can't be happening,_ he thought, sure the other man would understand if he could just find the right words to explain it.

"Clear!" the doctor shouted, and shocked Jess with the paddles.

And there, right then, right on the brink of the end of the world, Captain Hilary Becker finally thought of the right words:

_She's got to be all right. I love her..._

* * *

The first soldier went down before Matt even knew what was happening. Two EMD bolts struck him in the back, and he tumbled face-first into the dust. He was one of those with a leashed predator- whoever was shooting probably thought knocking out the soldiers would loose the predators, creating chaos in which to escape.

It was a good plan, but it didn't account for the nature of_ these _predators, rendered docile and obedient by whatever variation of plague had infected them. The freed predator just sat there, waiting, until Major Rivera pressed a button and gestured. Then it scuttled up the dunes along with his own creature, presumably in search of the shooter.

Whether or not it had come out as intended, Matt couldn't let such an opening go to waste. He tackled Rivera, landed atop him on the ground, and connected with a solid punch to the jaw, snapping the major's head back. He'd dropped his pistol, and Matt reached for it...

Rivera was quick. In moments, he'd kicked the gun away and turned the tables on Matt, rolling over in the sand and landing on his chest, the better to throttle him. Matt threw him off, and they coughed on mouthfuls of sand as they rolled back to their feet, circling each other in search of an opening...

Rivera saw the barrel of the pistol, nearly buried, and made a dash for it. Matt slammed into him, but he retrieved the gun as he fell and tried to bring the barrel around. Matt struggled with him, barely keeping the weapon at bay...

The sniper overhead kept firing. When taking out the keepers didn't work, the two lagging predators went down instead- an impressive feat, considering how fast the damn things moved!- and then the guards nearest to Matt. He caught a glimpse of tousled brown hair over the top of the dune...

_Emily?_ he thought. _What's she doing... oh, no. No, the predators are coming, you've got to RUN..._

But Matt had troubles enough of his own. He couldn't help her, couldn't gain any leverage against Rivera as the barrel of the pistol inched toward his head. The American turncoat grinned at him, realising his distraction and the state of the odds.

One of the future predators growled loudly. Matt saw it flying through the air toward Emily's position, then being knocked backward by multiple EMD bolts. Another was approaching from her blind side, but Emily whirled and stunned it with a bolt, barely in time. Now the guards were taking aim at her, too, and bullets kicked up sand centimetres from her position...

Taking advantage of Matt's concern, Rivera pounded his skull against the ground with a solid punch and finally brought the pistol up between them.

Matt could still see the dune past the major's head, Emily turning away as her position became indefensible- and running straight into a future predator, which loomed over her, ready to strike...

"Nice try," Rivera said, "but I think we're done here. Don't you?"

* * *

Abby didn't know what else to do. She kept battering the door until her fists were bloody, shouting and pleading, but it remained closed, the anomaly inside all but consuming Connor's lab...

"Connor, come on! You can't do this! You've got to let me in!_ Connor_!"

Even Rex seemed to join in, craning his neck up from Abby's pack and squawking in an unusually agitated manner. Then, just when Abby thought the whole thing was hopeless, the anomaly shrunk back into itself, reduced to a manageable size.

Connor looked up from his computer and smiled with evident relief. Abby smiled back.

_"In that moment, I really thought he'd done it. I thought he'd beaten time itself. So did he._

_"We were wrong."_

The anomaly flared again, brighter than ever, casting Connor's entire lab in light so brilliant, Abby had to shut her eyes. Then the shock wave hit, blowing the door open and tossing Abby bodily across the corridor, against the opposite wall.

The world turned red and black and painful, faded briefly, then snapped back into focus. The door hung off its frame, suspended by a single hinge. Everything inside the lab was in ruins...

"No, no, no, no... please! CONNOR!"

_"You know that saying, 'It never rains, but it pours?' That was the day it poured on the ARC. That was the day we lost everything._

_"Even as I was rushing back into the lab, scrambling over bits of ruined electronics and the remains of Connor's work table, even as I saw everything blackened and scorched and him buried in rubble, just like in my vision... even as I tried to dig him out, knowing in my heart it would be too late..._

* * *

_"Becker was watching helplessly as Jess's vital signs flat-lined and the medical team finally ceased resuscitation. The lead doctor stepped away from her bedside, looking resigned..."_

* * *

_"Just as Matt was hauled to his feet by the Southfield men, while Major Rivera led the way up the dunes to find Emily, pinned to the sand by the claws of a future predator..."_

Rivera stopped at the top of the dune and turned back, waited for his men to give Matt a really good view, while he chambered another round in his pistol...

"What do you think, Anderson? Should I let the beast infect her? Let her live out her life as a shrivelled husk of a plague victim? Or just end it now, with a bullet? You're the man in command. I leave it to you."

"Get away from her," Matt snarled. "If you hurt her, I'll..."

"Yeah, yeah. Empty Heroic Posturing Goes Here. This is what happens when you've only got one chance at life; bad things happen. We could prevent all this so easily... but you're intent on letting the world suffer, so you and yours can go first. Maybe then you'll learn something."

Rivera looked down at Emily, who glared daggers at him but couldn't escape the predator's claws. He returned her hatred with pure scorn. "What about you, _milady_? Anything to say for yourself?"

"I'm only wondering if your stupidity could possibly exceed your arrogance."

"Scrappy. I see why you like her." Rivera nodded to the predator holding Emily. "Good dog."

Then he turned and shot her through the heart.


	4. Act Three

**Primeval 6.7** ("The Day That Wouldn't Dawn")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Three**

_"Everyone has their own way of dealing with grief. Some get angry..."_

The doctor who'd failed to save Jess Parker's life exhaled slowly and began removing his rubber gloves. "The time is 11:07 AM. She's gone."

Becker barely heard; when the sharp slap of reality faded to numb shock, he turned and walked back through the doors of her room, into the hospital corridor, and sat down heavily on an empty chair. He covered his face with his hands as though he could reach into his brain and remove the memory of the last few days.

When that didn't work, he settled for removing something else: Any thoughts of remorse, of pity, of _mercy_ for the people responsible. All of that could wait; he had a lifetime for that. The moment demanded something else. By the time Becker's hands slid down his face and clenched into fists, there was nothing left but rage.

* * *

_"Some despair..."_

Major Rivera's aim might have been off by a centimetre, but no more. Emily wasn't quite dead yet, but she didn't have long; she was bleeding out into the sand of a world centuries past her time, and there was nothing Matt Anderson could do about it.

He fell on his knees beside Emily, heedless of the Southfield men surrounding him. He caught up her hands in his, felt the warmth of her blood, bowed his head and held back tears only by virtue of long years devoted to nothing but duty.

"No... please..."

Emily's eyes fluttered; the edges of her lips turned upward. "Look after the others. They believe in you."

"I've failed them. I've failed you all..."

"Matt, I..."

The words might have been _...love you_. They might have been _...wish we'd taken a chance long ago_. They might even have been_ ...was a fool to trust you_. But in the end, it didn't matter. Matt had only his private speculation as to what they might have been, because she never got to speak them. She died with them unsaid.

Matt bowed his head and shut his eyes. But that didn't last: before he knew what he was doing, he was on his feet and lunging at Major Rivera with intentions as bloody as his hands.

The major calmly brought his pistol up between them. "The Director thinks you're an asset, but he's... optimistic. So go ahead. Avenge her. Just try."

Matt wanted to; he'd never wanted anything more in his life. He could picture his hands around Rivera's throat. Unfortunately, he could also imagine a slim possibility that if he survived now, if he bided his time, he could not only have done with Rivera, but bring his whole damned organisation crashing down around him... and that would be much the better ending, not to mention a more satisfying revenge.

So Matt did what he always did: he took a step back. He did the careful thing. He took control of himself and waited for the right moment.

But he would not wait long. Privately, he swore to himself that Emily's last day of life would be the final day for Rivera, his friends, and all their plans. And perhaps he'd fulfil his double's wish in the process- perhaps this day would also see the end of him, and he'd be done with the future, with time travel, with the whole mess. Perhaps that would be for the best.

Without Emily, Matt found it hard to imagine any sort of future worth living.

* * *

_"And some are just lost, because they never- not in a million years, not_ ever_- imagined it could end... like that."_

Abby's hands were cut and blistered from digging through broken glass, wooden splinters, and scalding-hot metal, but she couldn't stop. She kept tossing aside debris until she'd uncovered Connor's upper body; his lower half was trapped under a heavy shelf that had collapsed in the blast.

The rest of him didn't look much better; Abby couldn't even bear to look at him for all the burns, the broken bones, the blood seeping through his shirt. He was bleeding from the scalp and the nose, and a thin trickle of blood escaped his lips when he managed to breathe; the slight wheezing made Abby think he'd collapsed a lung, as well.

"Connor, come on," Abby said, unwilling to let what she was seeing into her brain. "You're just a little hurt. Barely a scratch. Just hang on."

He drew in a sharp breath, groaned, and opened his eyes. Abby thought he'd be groggy, but he seemed perfectly aware of his surroundings- perhaps leveraging the brainpower he rarely used to its fullest to manage a few more moments of clarity.

"The world's... about to stop," he wheezed. He caught Abby's hand and squeezed it tight. Leaning forward, obviously pained by the effort, he whispered in her ear as though imparting a vital secret. "_What do you think I've been doing_?"

"I think you're running out on me, and I won't let you." Abby seemed to be hearing herself speak from a very great distance, as though she was watching all this happen in a film. She returned Connor's grip on her hand. "You made me a promise, right? You said I was gonna be the most beautiful bride ever."

"But you _were_."

Connor smiled. Then his head lolled back and he became very still. Abby reached out and closed his eyes. Tears rolled down her face as she crouched over him, at a loss as to what to do next. All at once, she threw her head back and_ screamed_, a keening, hopeless sound, full of fury and desolation.

Maybe it was the scream that drew it; she never knew for certain. What she did realise, later on, was that Connor's valiant sacrifice had saved the ARC from immediate destruction, but that was only the beginning. Perhaps Southfield had been anticipating he would thwart their initial assault from the start; in any case, their portal's sudden detonation had weakened time and space throughout the area, so that all around the ARC, tiny cracks began to appear. In the same way that, months earlier, the time-loop anomaly had drawn a certain triceratops ever closer to the ARC, tiny anomalies were drawn in the portal's wake, anomalies whose opposite ends had been commandeered to launch the second wave of the assault.

The first of these anomalies had just burst open behind Abby, and a future predator stepped out. She heard its growling- a sound she would have known in her sleep- but it didn't attack immediately. Matt would have recognised it as one of those infected by the Southfield plague; rather than being a mindless predator, it had come specifically to assassinate members of the team.

Abby didn't know about that, either; she only knew it had come at just the right time. Rising slowly, she grabbed the largest shard of glass she could find in the debris and wielded it like a knife as she turned to face the predator.

"Come on, then," she said. "I don't care any more, I don't care! _Let's have you_!"

The predator advanced, but before Abby could react, Rex squirmed free from her pack and swooped in-between them, defending Abby and distracting the terrible creature.

"No, Rex! No!"

The predator swiped at Rex several times as he flapped and squawked and made a nuisance of himself, but it couldn't quite catch up to him- and then it did, a glancing blow, but enough to send Rex tumbling into the wreckage.

_"NO!"_

Something in Abby Maitland snapped. Suddenly the predator instead of the prey, she charged the awful creature with the shard of glass in her hand, determined to cut its throat even at the cost of her own life. The predator leaped through the air at her; in a heartbeat, they would collide. Abby waited for the moment, the sensation of pain, the chance to join her friends at the end of everything-

But the moment didn't come. The predator didn't come any closer; neither did it miss her, or fall to the ground. It just hung there, suspended in mid-air, the millisecond before death stretching out to eternity...

And then Abby's mobile phone rang.

"What?" she said. She tried to stab the predator with her improvised weapon; she couldn't even touch it. Like a phantom, she couldn't seem to interact with anything in the lab. Little golden sparkles chased themselves around the room, a bit like the whole place was stuck in the middle of an anomaly- or, more likely, in Connor's time machine effect. The mobile phone in Abby's pocket continued ringing, and she looked down at it in accusation. "Wait... I don't... _what_?"

Unable to do anything useful, Abby finally took the device from her pocket and answered. Actually it wasn't her mobile at all- it had several new buttons, and the display screen looked unfamiliar. When Abby looked down at it, she noticed the wedding ring on her finger, glowing particularly bright with the golden time effect.

Abby pressed a green button and lifted the strange device to her ear. "Eh.. hello?"

"Abby?"

Abby whirled; it was Connor's voice! But her moment of hope died as quickly as it was born, for Connor remained buried in rubble, as motionless as everything else in the room. The voice came from outside the lab, from somewhere down the corridor...

"Abby, can you hear me?"

Abby took a step toward the door; hesitated, but couldn't think of a better idea. She wandered into the corridor, following the voice. Everything around her was hazy, surreal, as though time itself had gone on holiday. The voice kept beckoning her, but not at all in a comforting, _go toward the light_ sort of way: In fact, it sounded very much like Connor's mad science-babble.

"I hope the file played properly; I kept tinkering with it, the tests went well, but then I had to bury it in the system so Matt or Jess wouldn't find it at the last minute. And don't ask me how it's playing when everything else is stopped; I could explain, but then I'll really sound like _Star Trek,_ and I know you don't have the patience for that. Listen, all right? Just_ listen_, 'cause it's really important...

"I wish I knew how to explain... why I have to do this. Why I'm so convinced it's the only way..."

* * *

In the moments sandwiched around Abby's stopped point in time, things were going mad in the ARC's control centre. Alarms sounded everywhere throughout the facility, and so many personnel had been dispatched to various trouble spots that Jenny- who knew as much about computers as she did about the anatomy of a velociraptor- was filling in at the Hub, desperately trying to interpret the flow of data that would have been second nature to Jess.

"What was that?" Lester demanded of her, when the lights dimmed for a moment.

"Well... I think... yes, all right. Power's down on levels two and three. There's some sort of... drain, or... something, down by Connor's lab."

"Any word from Connor himself?"

Jenny shook her head. "No, it's all interference. But it looks like... oh, dear."

Lester arched an eyebrow. "Oh, dear... what?"

Jenny pointed at the screen. "That strange signal Connor was receiving? Well, as best I can tell, it's now... everywhere."

Slowly, in almost comical unison, they turned from the Hub- to behold dozens of micro-anomalies forming in the control centre, through which the most disconcerting sounds could be heard.

Lester snapped his fingers at one of Becker's few remaining guards, who stood watch at the doorway. The young man began distributing EMD rifles from the armoury- to Lester, to Jenny, and to the few remaining support staff. By the time he was finished, the anomalies were beginning to open.

The first future predator to poke its head out got it between the eyes from Jenny's rifle. The next took a couple of bolts from Lester. But the third leaped through and mauled an office worker before the guard managed to drive it away.

"_Why is it always these damned things_?" Lester growled, even as he fired again and again, methodically knocking down one predator after another. But neither his power pack nor any of the others would last indefinitely...

* * *

Abby finally located the source of Connor's voice; a video recording he'd made was playing on a computer screen in a disused office, several doors down from his lab. Abby wanted to cry to see him— it must have been just a few days ago- healthy and safe and... not burned or broken, as he'd been in the lab.

Healthy and safe, but not precisely happy. For the tale Connor was telling sounded more than a bit grim. He knew- he'd known from the beginning- this was a message of farewell.

"...I should have said a lot of things sooner, Abby. I just thought we'd have more time." The video skipped; he smiled, and looked a bit more like himself. "So I made more time. Well, took you out of time. Remember our discussion, whether you should see other men after I'm gone? Well, you _can_ see them; they can't see you. I think it's a fair compromise."

Before Abby could get properly furious- more for his flippant attitude than for the joke at her expense- Connor's image sobered.

"That's not funny, I don't know why I make stupid jokes at the worst times. I'm sorry, Abby. I really am. Right, then: There are certain things you need to know, about how it'll be triggered, how it all works... Your mobile phone's obviously not a mobile; I switched it for a device I made, a portable version of the time machine, to be activated the moment my vitals... stop. This device can help you in what you've got to do, but be careful; it's got limited power. Matt's double has the deluxe model; I think he must recharge his in the future periodically, but don't count on being able to do that. The way things are going, I'm not sure what comes next.

"I do know the lack of transmitters created a sort of... logistical problem, which I solved by locking the device to a physical object. The human body's too changeable; if you put on a bit of mass... wait, forget I said that... if you _lost_ a bit of mass between now and then, all my calculations would be rubbish. So I locked it to something nice and permanent, something you'd never take off: Your wedding ring. You can only use the device while you're holding it."

Abby looked down at the ring around her finger, still sparkling like an anomaly, and shook her head to realise he'd arranged all this right under her nose. "Connor... what have you done?"

"You see, that must be why I sent you into the Pleistocene," Connor's image said, oblivious to her question. "I had to get a proper reading on it, like a trial run. I think that's also why you're skipping forward in time. I didn't expect that, but it's harmless. It'll stop when you take off the ring, or when the power runs out. For now, it's an edge against Southfield. And you're gonna need it.

"I know Matt's told you about his time loop. Well, think about this, Abby: Why has he never beaten them? He's had a thousand years to try different combinations, and he's never found a future where we win. Why does it never _work_?

"It's because Southfield has knowledge even Helen didn't have: The secret of alternate Universes. Every time Matt beats them, they reach into another timeline and create a new world where it never happened. They're cheating time itself, and he doesn't even know they're doing it. For him, it's just failure after failure. They probably expect that sooner or later, he'll give up or run out of power or die, and that'll be the end of it. But it won't end like that. We can't let it. No one should have that kind of power. I know... because I have it myself, now."

Abby shook her head, struggling to believe what she was hearing. "You'd worked it all out. You could have stopped them. You could have wiped them from existence... but you just left me a message. Why?"

Connor proceeded to answer the question he must have guessed she'd ask. "The most important thing now isn't our lives and it isn't even stopping Southfield: It's destroying their knowledge forever. Once it gets out, once everyone can make their own personal world by getting their hands on a time device, the Universe just... unravels.

"I've gone too far down this road already. If I try to beat them at their game, I'll end up no better than them, so it's on you, Abby. They must have some sort of mechanism for doing this. It'll be a machine the size of my lab. You've got to destroy it, and make sure it's never rebuilt. I know it's a lot to ask, but Cutter left me with a lot, and that turned out all right... sort of."

* * *

_"That might have been the first time it occurred to me," Abby says later, in her own message on another computer monitor. "All these years dealing with time- I'd never wanted to change anything before. Not so badly that I'd risk it. But Connor was so set on doing the right thing, I almost couldn't help thinking what would happen if I did the wrong thing._

_"After all, Southfield had changed the timeline on us, right? Who's to say that horrible day was ever supposed to happen? It might have been the result of their meddling. And with the device Connor gave me, with that kind of power, maybe anything was possible. Maybe it could still be changed._

_"Because there was one other thing I couldn't stop thinking about: Matt's double had promised me, some time earlier, that I could save Connor. There would be a moment, a moment I couldn't possibly miss, in which I'd have the chance to save him, but I wouldn't. I would fail my friends when they needed me most. And that moment hadn't happened yet. Oh, I'd been worried about Connor- really worried, so many awful things were happening- but there was never a moment when I thought I could stop them. Matt promised me I'd know what to do, and I didn't. So maybe this was it. Maybe, just this once, I was _supposed_ to change time._

_"But Matt also said, to save Connor, I'd have to sacrifice someone I loved. I didn't know what that might mean. Maybe it was Connor himself. Maybe Matt meant that if I brought him back against his wishes... if I betrayed everything Cutter ever taught us... I would lose him anyway. Maybe I'd lose everyone. They'd never understand what I had to do. Maybe that was the sacrifice."_

* * *

"It's worth that," Abby said back at the ARC, as all these thoughts went through her head for the first time. She smiled. "It's worth anything..."

But on the screen in front of her, Connor smiled too. "I know what you're thinking. That's why your device is different to Matt's. I've locked out three decades on yours- from my birth to the moment of my death."

Abby stared at the screen, shocked and betrayed. "You did _what_?"

"I know you, love. I know you'd want to save me, save us all, and you can't. I can't let you start your own timeline either. That's not better, Abby. Time has to be allowed to return to its normal progress; whatever's happened to me, it's done and gone and you've got to accept it."

"You don't get to make that decision!" Abby snapped. She'd just been starting to hope again, and to have it snatched away... all her grief and anger poured out, and she raged at the screen. "You... you_ idiot_! You think you're so much cleverer than me! Well, I've_ always_ been ahead of you! I only let you into my flat because you amused me! I only kissed you 'cause I felt _sorry_ for you! And now you think you can do this, rip out my heart and then just... just_ leave _me? I'm NOT giving up! I won't! Not _ever_! Don't you dare tell me I should!"

She was waving her fists in the air, tears streaming down her cheeks. She suddenly felt rather stupid, ranting at a pre-recorded message. She didn't know why she was doing so, whether she was angry with Connor or herself or with Southfield or... perhaps with a rare lizard who'd crossed her path some years earlier and gotten lost in the Forest of Dean. Maybe she was angry with them all. Maybe, just now, she didn't care who she was angry with, so long as she got to be angry.

On the screen, Connor sighed. "I've paused for twenty seconds so you can yell at me, but when you're done, you're gonna realise I'm right. So, when you've decided to do the right thing, remember: At the end of all this, Matt has to use his device and go back into the time loop. His coming back started this chain of events, so he's got to complete the loop or the paradox will keep getting worse. Don't worry, he'll be fine so long as you destroy the machine. Once the chain is secure and Southfield can no longer interfere, he should return right where he started. It'll be over, and you can move on."

Golden sparkles chased themselves around the screen, as Abby watched her husband's face grow sombre. "But if you can't destroy the machine, Abby- if anything goes wrong, and you can't end the loop- then you've got to use your own device and escape. Otherwise, it'll just continue, everyone dying over and over, forever. So you see, I am cheating- a bit. I'm getting you out of the trap, one way or another. Cutter would have understood that. I really think he would have understood.

"If you fail, go back. Make the best life you can in the past. And yeah, fine, I'll shift you back into normal time so you can see other men. Happy?" Connor made a face. "I just heard that, and it sounds insensitive. I keep forgetting I'm dead. I'm sure you're not happy _now._ But you will be. That's all I ask."

The video skipped- a noticeable edit- and Connor continued, "I had a whole last part here... about how lucky I was. But I wanted to say more, so I changed the ending. I've been thinking about time lately... possibilities. Whether there's an alternate Universe where we had a family and lived fifty years together. You remember, before we married, I worried about that? Whether we were meant to be? Well, I decided that was stupid.

"We weren't just chance; we couldn't be. In all those possibilities, all those infinite worlds, I can't imagine one where I don't love you... because I've always loved you, since day one and forever. If you doubt anything we've done, if you ever wonder whether it was worth it... remember we're out there somewhere, and happy. Trust in that, Abby."

Abby tasted salt on her lips again; she would have thought she was cried out. Connor shrugged his shoulders, almost comically serious, and took a deep breath.

"That's all. Mind the power level on the device. It will reboot time in five... four... three... two..."

"NO!" Abby said, clutching futilely at thin air.

"One," said Connor's image. "Goodbye."

Abby seemed caught between two breaths. The shimmering time effect stuttered and vanished, and then she was standing in a normal room, dark and cold and abandoned. Abby took a deep breath to steady herself, still staring at the blank monitor.

"_No._ You don't get the last word this time. I can change the ending, too."

Determined now, she turned on her heel and crept back toward the lab, still brandishing her improvised knife. She heard alarms and sounds of struggling- people screaming. There must have been predators all over the ARC. But she didn't see any on her way back, and she waited patiently, careful even of the sound of her heartbeat, until she saw the predator who'd been suspended in the lab scuttle away. Perhaps it was surprised to find its prey suddenly gone. Perhaps it retained some of its old instincts, and sought an easier meal.

When she was certain it couldn't hear, Abby hurried back into the the lab. She refused to look in Connor's direction- knowing what she knew, she didn't even acknowledge the reality of that awful moment. She found what she was looking for in the wreckage on the other side of the room: The temporal inhibitor cards Connor had designed to protect the memory. He hadn't stopped blathering about the idea for a week, and for once, Abby was glad she'd listened. She took a handful of them, four or five at least, and stuck them in her pocket. A plan was forming in her mind, a plan Connor with all his intelligence would not have conceived. The cards were one needed element; another was...

Another was in the corridor, presumably, judging by the multiple gunshots. Abby raced to the door to find Chris Newman, their sometime-prisoner, engaged in combat with the future predator she thought had departed. As she watched, the predator bounced off walls and ceilings to evade Newman's shots, then struck, knocking him against the wall and his gun to the ground at Abby's feet.

Newman produced a knife, intent on having a go at the creature hand-to-hand, if necessary, but he didn't get the chance. With an icy calm more produced by numbness than courage, Abby picked up the gun and marched across the corridor, firing at the future predator. She stuck it several times; it crumpled with its claws at Newman's throat.

He grinned at her. "Abby Maitland. Told you we'd meet again. Hope you don't mind, I let myself out of the menagerie; the guard didn't need that gun. Like most of the things down there, he was beyond help. I'm sorry."

"Shut up; I wasn't aiming at him." Abby kept marching until she stood with Newman backed against the wall and the pistol pressed into his chest, and whispered, "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you for what you've done."

"You should." Newman had the decency to lower his eyes. "But it won't save you. You have to fix this, and I can help."

"You think we'd trust you again?" Abby said. _"Ever_?"

"Yeah, I think so," Newman said. His voice changed, becoming softer, less irritable. Nearly familiar. "I know you, Abby. I know you like lizards because your parents took you to the Galapagos. I know you hate spiders because a neighbour's pet tarantula crawled into your basement when you were a kid.

"I know you realised you could love Connor Temple in our second year, when he brought you wild flowers he found growing outside the ARC. Of course, they weren't wild; they were rare hybrids you were growing for an experiment. You didn't speak to him for days. But you still have one of the flowers."

Almost without intending to, Abby lowered the gun and stepped back. She stared at Newman. "It's really true. You're Cutter."

"No, I'm not," he said. "Not yet. Come on."

He turned and led the way toward safety. Abby hesitated; only when he was gone did she allow herself a smile._ There's still a chance. There's going to be a moment; there must be._

_I'll do whatever it takes..._

* * *

Back at the ARC's control centre, James Lester and Jenny Lewis stood back-to-back before the Hub, facing the far-too-familiar spectre of future predators, encircling them and drawing closer by the moment. Lester kept firing, but his EMD rifle was nearly out of charge; from the sound of it, Jenny's wasn't doing much better.

A predator lurched forward, daring him to fire. Lester pulled the trigger; nothing happened. Empty power pack. He prepared to use the rifle as a club as the predator rushed him...

"DOWN!" cried a new voice.

Jenny pulled Lester to the ground, even as the future predator leaped- but it never hit the ground in one piece. A jet of flame arced across the room, burning every predator it touched. On the floor with his arms shielding his head, Lester was grateful not to be able to do more than guess at the aftermath, but he heard them screeching and smelled them burning; that was more than enough.

In a few moments, the screeching died down. Strong hands helped both Lester and Jenny to their feet. Lester opened his eyes to find Becker standing with them, a flame-thrower strapped to his back.

"Stashed these away in the armoury when they didn't work on the mushroom people," Becker said. "I knew they'd come in handy someday. Sorry I'm late."

His tone was light, his expression nearly amused, but there was something... wrong about it all. Jenny noticed, too, and put her finger on the cause.

"What about Jess?"

The mask slipped; Becker shook his head and abruptly looked away. Lester felt suddenly hollowed-out, as though the news had blown a hole in his midsection and all the bits that made the world make sense leaked out, leaving him empty and blown about by the wind.

He turned and paced a few steps away from the others, hands clenched into fists, trying to regain his poise...

"All right," Jenny said. "We have to regroup. James, if you need a moment..."

"I'm fine."

Something stirred at Lester's feet; one of those damned predators, still barely alive, lurched up and made a grab for him. Lester hammered it down with the stock of his rifle, and _kept_ hammering, taking all his fury and guilty feelings out on the nightmare creature's carcass, intent on smashing it to bits. He only stopped when he felt Jenny's gentle touch on his shoulder.

Lester shrugged her off, lowered the rifle, and straightened his tie. "I'm_ fine,_ thank you. Quite all right."

Another footstep at the door. Lester whirled, brandishing his useless rifle in case there should be another chance to prove himself... all right. But it wasn't a predator; it was Abby, looking about as ragged and hopeless as Lester felt, along with Christopher Newman.

Becker took a step toward Newman. "Oh, look, it's the man of the hour! I made you a promise, mate, remember? Time to pay up."

Abby stepped in-between them, her voice a hoarse whisper. "Not _now_, Becker."

"Abby, get out of the way, luv. This has nothing to do with you."

"Yeah, but we need him," Abby said, standing her ground. "We need him to take this fight to the people who are really responsible, so if you want him, you're gonna go through me."

Becker almost scoffed at the idea that would pose a problem- but something about the quiet intensity of Abby's manner stopped him. Maybe he sensed a kindred spirit. Lester bowed his head.

"Oh, God," Jenny said. "It's Connor too, isn't it?"

Abby didn't say a word. They all stood there, silent and broken, wondering what to do.

Then, finally, Becker stirred. "So, I'm thinking... revenge, yeah?"

"Had a thought about that," Abby said. "Newman was telling me on the way up- he knows one more way to the Southfield base, a contact protocol that will definitely get their notice. We have a way in."

"_I _have a way in," Newman said, "As I've been trying to tell Abby, Southfield has scouts all over the area, so you lot won't get near the base unless you can make yourselves invisible."

"Funny thing about that," Abby said, and held up what looked like a mobile phone. "All we need is a distraction."

"I can arrange that," Newman said. He glanced at Jenny. "There's _one _thing guaranteed to hold their attention."

"Oh," Jenny said. "Lovely."

Lester said, "Isn't there a chance Matt and Emily might have succeed? Perhaps they're dealing with Southfield as we speak."

Abby shook her head. "This was all set up from the beginning. We have to assume it's gone badly for the others, as well. But Matt should be alive, at least; they'll want to question him about the future. So... we get in, get them back, and then we do the last thing Connor asked. We destroy the machine that makes all this possible, forever. When it's gone, Southfield's power will be broken. It will literally fade from history."

"I know the schematics of the place," Newman said. "I can tell you how to find the machine, but not how to operate it."

Becker shrugged. "Destroying it's good enough for me."

"Yeah, but how do you do that safely?" the mercenary pointed out. "You don't seem to understand; this thing has tendrils into hundreds of timelines. Press the wrong button, you could collapse them all."

"Then we're sunk," Jenny said. "Connor or Jess might have been able to operate a thing like that, but-"

"Actually," Newman said, "there might be another way."

* * *

An ocean away, the Director of the American installation known as Area 94 was doing paperwork, shuffling requisition requests and security clearances so no one in the media realised the secret base existed, and so his superiors in the American government didn't realise he was actually turning the whole thing to the advantage of his colleagues, the creators of the Southfield laboratory.

It was he who had ordered the strike against the ARC, and he was anxiously awaiting word of its success- from Major Rivera, or from one of his other sources. But confirmation came from the most unlikely source of all, when a British ex-patriot named Danny Quinn suddenly burst into his office with an assault rifle.

"Oh," said the Director. "I guess it's one of _those_ mornings..."

"You bastard!" Danny said. "I heard from the ARC. You've been using me against my friends the whole time!"

The Director spread his hands innocently. "I don't have the slightest idea what you mean."

"You're under arrest," Danny continued, "for treason against the United States and acts of terrorism against her allies."

The Director arched an eyebrow. "Those are very serious charges. Are you sure you can prove them?"

"I don't have to prove anything. I just have to keep you here for a few hours. And you have to answer a few questions."

The Director smiled. "You're a stranger in a strange land, Danny. The people at this base are American operatives; what makes you think they'll follow you over me?"

Almost on cue to dispute his assumption, Danny's second-in-command, the ex-CIA operative Lisa Barrett, burst into the room, along with another of Area 94's agents, the beautiful Sharon Clarke. These two hadn't been brought in by the Director; in their minds, he'd betrayed their country, and their glares were at least as poisonous as that of their British friend.

"Half our military contingent's gone the way of Rivera," Lisa said. She turned deliberately toward Danny. "What are _your_ orders?"

"Take Duncan, round up everyone we didn't recruit personally. Lock 'em in the brig until we sort this out." Danny turned to Sharon. "See if you can track down Rivera. Find out who he's talked to, where he's been- anything that might help Abby and the others. _Move_."

As the women departed, the Director shook his head. "Well... that's disappointing. But in two hours, you won't even remember it."

Danny gestured with the rifle. "You think you're gonna change time from here? Manipulate my history? I'd like to see you try."

"But I _have_ tried," said the Director. "How many times do you think you've stormed into this office after uncovering my little scheme, Danny? Six times? Seven? You're always made to see reason... after one or two alterations."

Danny Quinn came very close to rage, but he held the muzzle of his rifle steady. "Not this time. This time you've gone too far. My friends are gonna stop you. If they don't, I might just take-"

"-care of things myself," the Director recited the words along with him, and smiled. "You've said that before, too. You've got me in check, Danny. Well done. But _checkmate_ is still to come."

"We'll see," Danny said, and he sat down deliberately on the opposite side of the desk. "Now, let's talk about the machine..."


	5. Act Four

**Primeval 6.7** ("The Day That Wouldn't Dawn")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

**Act Four**

_"So it was decided. Newman would approach Southfield directly and pretend to offer Jenny in exchange for Matt. I'd follow them through and hide myself using Connor's time device. It would have been simplest just to skip through time and space, straight to the machine... but I'd have to know exactly where and when I wanted to go. Like that X-Man fellow from Connor's comic books, I might materialise inside a wall if I got it wrong. That seemed like a last resort, so I didn't suggest it. I'd go in the back entrance with a stolen code of Newman's and search for Matt the old-fashioned way._

_"Becker would come with me because... well, when I suggested going alone, he said a really impolite word. I didn't even know if the device would work for two, but I supposed taking the chance was better than either of us staying behind at the ARC, going mad._

_"We went down to the armoury to get ready. Walking next to Becker, I knew exactly how he felt- or didn't feel. We couldn't let ourselves feel, 'cause it wasn't over yet. So Becker focused on his duty and me on my promise from Matt. I was ready to move Heaven and Earth, just to have another chance. And I didn't care about the cost._

_"This quickly became awkward, because I couldn't do it alone. I needed help..."_

Becker shook his head and exhaled a long breath as they walked down toward the armoury. Abby feared he was about to crack, his grief and anger all too close to the surface, but he pushed it aside and pretended to talk about small things.

"Lucky we were able to contact Danny," Becker said. "Last time Southfield infiltrated us, the coms went down."

"Connor fixed them," Abby said. "He fixed everything just the way we'd need it..."

_And then he left me behind,_ Abby thought, and had to close her eyes to hold back angry tears. Becker saw her flinch, and guessed at what she was feeling.

"I teased him, but he was my best mate. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Abby sighed, "and Jess was... lovely. Look, we can't do this now. We need to talk. My plan isn't only to save Matt."

Becker arched an eyebrow. "Well, now I'm confused, because I thought the plan was to save Matt."

Abby took a deep breath. "The device Connor left me can do more than keep us out of sight. It can send me back. If we can put that machine out of commission, I can undo everything. This can be the day that doesn't dawn."

Becker stopped short and stared at her. "You mean... change time ourselves? Just like that?"

"Not _just_ like that," Abby admitted. "The device is safeguarded. I can't go back to a point in the last thirty years. But if Connor thinks I'll let him get away with this just because he's made it a bit difficult..."

"Abby," Becker said gently, "you're talking like he's still alive."

"It can't be impossible. I could go back further and write a letter. That works in films, but it's not sure. The better way would be to find the right people, like Elizabeth Evans and this American of Danny's. Stop them before they start- even before they're born."

"_Stop them before they're._..?" Becker trailed off. "Listen to yourself! Do you know what that would mean?"

"Doesn't matter. It's worth it," Abby said. "Don't look at me like that! I'm not taking this lightly; I've thought it through! According to Connor, they've changed the timeline dozens of times, maybe hundreds. You know they won't stop experimenting. They won't ever stop- until they make a mistake and unleash that plague or wipe out the human race! Any future I create has to be better than _that_. I'm only talking about a few small changes, to save everyone!"

"Don't you think I've thought it through, as well?" Becker said. "Don't you think I've been down to the server room every night, thinking about that anomaly- how easy it would have been to step through and take my chances with history? When you lot were in the Cretaceous and we lost Sarah, do you think I thought about anything else? It's too dangerous!"

"Becker, didn't you hear me?" Abby said, waving her fists in lieu of grabbing him by the collar and pulling his face close to hers. "_We can still save Jess_!"

"Of course I heard you!" Becker snapped. "But it's not right, is it?"

"This is bigger than right or wrong..."

"There's nothing bigger than right or wrong!"

"Yes, there is," Abby said. "One thing. Just one, bigger than the whole world, and that's what's guiding me. I know you understand, 'cause you spent years grieving for Sarah, and she was just a friend. You expect me to believe you're gonna stop me from saving your 'best mate' and the woman you love? I don't think you will. I know you too well, Becker. So if you're not gonna help, get out of my way."

She turned on her heel and hurried toward the armoury, leaving Becker momentarily stymied. She almost hoped he wouldn't follow; he could just stand aside and let her do what needed doing. But that wasn't going to work, and in any case it wasn't Becker; after a moment, Abby heard his determined footsteps following hers.

She turned into the armoury and stopped, awaiting another lecture. To her surprise, Becker marched right past her- and then past the racks of EMD's, to a locker on the far side of the room. He produced a key, unlocking a full selection of conventional weapons and old-fashioned, lethal ammunition.

For the first time, Abby faltered. "What are you doing?"

"Showing you what it would mean," Becker said. He removed a rifle and loaded a clip of ammunition, then slapped it into Abby's hands. "If you want to do this, there's only one way: All-in, whatever it takes."

"Yeah, but... we don't need _these_..."

"Don't we?" Becker said. "For your plan to work, we'll need to destroy that base beyond repair- because anyone from Southfield will risk anything to follow you back. We'll have to be certain. We'll have to make a mess."

"But... a lot of them are foreign soldiers, like Rivera!" Abby shook her head. "We could be committing twenty or thirty acts of war! We'll be implicating the ARC in taking lives- _human_ lives!"

Becker shrugged. "Your plan, not mine. If you're right and we succeed, it won't matter. It will never have happened. That's how this works, right?"

Panicking now, Abby began to pace the room. "I think. I _hope._ Connor barely understood this stuff, let alone me. It's not just the killing. We have to think about what could happen to our friends, to the survivors..."

"_There aren't going to be any survivors, Abby_!"

Abby came to a sudden halt; Becker's stratagem had worked. It had made her look beyond her own narrow perspective. She saw what Connor had been trying to tell her, how horrifying it could be if it all went sour. Was it possible they were both right? There was nothing to be done? It was just... _over_, beyond changing? She shook her head, which was spinning with hopeless thoughts.

Becker approached and put his hands on her shoulders. He stared at her very seriously. "I'm sorry, but that's what it comes to: You're betting this timeline is already compromised, that _anything _must be an improvement because none of it could possibly be real. And you're not just betting our lives. You're betting the world. So, look me in the eye and tell me honestly: Are you that sure?"

When he put it that way, all the spinning pieces came back together. Abby looked up at Becker, exhaled, and said: "Yes."

"Best news I've heard today," Becker said. He turned back to the weapons locker and claimed a rifle for himself, along with several grenades. "Let's go."

Abby stared after him, wondering if she'd created a monster. Wondering if she'd become a monster herself; there was no doubt she'd adopted Southfield's methods in her quest to undo their damage. She'd thought she was prepared for that. She never realised how unpleasant being a monster could be for the monsters themselves. There seemed to be no end to it...

_There is an end,_ she told herself. _It's the one Matt promised. It's meant to be. If this is the moment, if this is the thing I'm not willing to do... then I'll do it. Becker's right about one thing: There'll be no coming back from this. Well, fair enough._

Shouldering the rifle, she turned and left the armoury.

* * *

Jenny shared a worried look with Lester when Abby and Becker returned with real guns instead of EMD's. The ARC's director arched an eyebrow, but didn't say a word in protest. There might even have been a hint of vicious appreciation in his eyes; in his own way, he was taking the deaths hard, Jess in particular.

Abby handed a gun to Newman, while Becker looked down at his own weapon and seemed to contemplate whether it would be worth scuttling the plan to be done with the traitor for good and all. Jenny wanted to comfort him, but the fact was- what point in denying it with the world falling apart?- she felt more than sympathy for Newman. She'd defended him once, for the sake of the man he sometimes resembled, and if necessary, she'd do it again. She felt awful, as though she betrayed both her friends and Michael, merely by thinking it. But there it was; if they were proving anything at the ARC today, it was that the heart could not be made rational.

Finally they clustered around what was left of the Hub and Newman sent a signal which, he said, would shortly bring them a re-routed anomaly- a first-class ticket from their friends at Southfield.

While they were waiting, Lester stirred. "I still think I should go with you."

"Stay here," Jenny told him. "Coordinate with Danny. If anything goes wrong, you two are our last hope."

Lester nodded unhappily. Abby touched Jenny's arm and pointed: A tiny, glowing pinprick had appeared on the far side of the room. The micro-anomaly began to grow before their eyes, and Jenny took a deep breath...

"Last chance to send them a sternly worded note instead," said Lester. "No? No one? Very well. Go on, and good luck."

Newman took Jenny her the arm, as though he held her prisoner. Together, they stepped toward the anomaly. Just before they passed through it, Jenny saw Abby take Becker's hand, press a button on her mobile device, and vanish...

Jenny shook her head. Strange days, indeed- but to her surprise, and for perhaps the first time since returning to the ARC, she found she did not regret her decision. Nick had given his life to protect the world from Helen. The idea that people like Major Rivera had made a hero of her, had elevated her murderous insanity as some sort of divine inspiration, the idea that those people thought they could play god with history, manipulating hundreds, thousands, _millions_ of lives the way Jenny had been manipulated... well, it was infuriating. It had to be stopped, and that was all.

Helen had once observed the main difference between Claudia Brown and her alter-ego, claiming Jenny Lewis was more aggressive. If Jenny had her way, that would be the one thing the bitch was right about, and it would prove her disciples' undoing.

She stood before a fully-formed, sparkling anomaly. With these thoughts in mind, Jenny closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped off the edge of the world-

-straight into hell. A wall of noxious air and oppressive heat assailed her on the opposite side of the anomaly; Jenny coughed and gagged for several moments before getting her bearings.

Matt Anderson's future was every bit as bad as he described, all barren rock and desolate sand, and Jenny felt a great surge of regret for what humanity had wrought upon the Earth. But she only had a moment for that, and then it was time to wreak some more.

Newman gestured at the silver-grey shape of a modern installation in the distance. "There we are: the Southfield base. Cutter never took you on a date like this, I'll bet."

"Sadly, you would lose that bet," Jenny said. "Come on."

They walked in silence for five minutes, then ten. At one point, Newman caught her eye and gave perhaps a quarter-nod toward a dune as they passed; Jenny took that to mean they were being watched, and did what she could to appear out of her depth, frightened, and oppressed. As roles went, it didn't stretch her acting talent very far.

There must have been some sort of signal- she never saw or heard it, but when they got within shouting distance of the installation's front door, soldiers and mutated future predators seemed to pop up out of the sand. In moments, they were surrounded.

One of the men holding a predator's leash seemed to be in charge; he bore a sergeant's rank on his otherwise featureless uniform, and was one of the few Southfield men who spoke with an English accent. He was a stranger to Jenny, but Matt Anderson would have known him well: He'd come within a heartbeat of shooting Emily Merchant in a similarly barren Pleistocene landscape, not very long ago. That he'd failed where his superior officer succeeded would have done little to endear him to Matt, and there was something about his expression that Jenny didn't like. The other Southfield soldiers had the courtesy to look superior; this fellow seemed a bit bored by it all, as though killing and fighting at his masters' command was all in a day's work.

Perhaps Newman disliked it, too, for he stopped directly in front of the sergeant and levelled a pistol on his predator.

"I'm here to see Major Rivera," Newman said. "Don't make me knock on the door."

The sergeant arched his eyebrows. He favoured Jenny with such a cold smile that she found herself pining for a _Giganotosaurus_ she'd once known. It was already a particularly bad day, and Jenny feared it was about to get even worse...

* * *

The good news was, Abby's device worked with two people. Abby assumed that was why Connor locked his calculations to the mass of her ring, rather than a person. Theoretically, a dozen people could probably travel that way, provided one of them was touching the ring and they had unlimited power.

The bad news was, Abby didn't have unlimited power, and carrying twice as many seemed to drain the power _at least_ twice as fast. When time 'stopped,' she and Becker ran double-time through a pulsating, psychedelic landscape toward the temporary blind spot Newman had identified in Southfield's defences. They'd only just reached it when the world suddenly snapped back into focus, and rough sand driven by the wind slapped them in the face.

"What happened?" Becker demanded.

"I think we tripped some sort of automatic safety," Abby said, studying the strange controls just as though she understood them. "Connor must have designed it that way; otherwise we'd drain the power before we got started. If I'm reading this right, the device isn't empty, but there's a cool-down period."

"Great," Becker sighed. "So we're on our own."

"Yeah. For a while, yeah." Abby shrugged. "We should just wait here until..."

"There's a patrol due in less than two minutes." Becker shook his head. "We were never gonna get this done on gimmicks alone. Save the power; I'll take over now."

Abby had her doubts about that, but she also disliked the thought of trusting Matt's rescue to an unfamiliar device that might expire at any moment. She allowed Becker to lead the way over the last leg of their journey, toward the rear entrance of the Southfield base.

The patrol got there in a minute and a half, before they'd made their destination; they barely dropped to the ground before they were spotted. Becker gestured to Abby for silence and crawled on all fours through the sand, buffeted by sand until he was dirty enough to blend in with the landscape.

He crept in behind the patrol- a pair of hired soldiers, both big, tough-looking fellows. Becker sprang up and disabled the first with a single blow to the back of the neck. The other whirled around; Becker relieved him of his rifle and knocked him out with three well-aimed punches. He dragged them behind the nearest dune and aimed his rifle-

"Becker, don't!"

Her friend glared at her. "Abby, they'll sound the alarm."

"So will a gunshot," she said. "Just wait, all right? We'll do what's necessary- but not yet."

Becker finally tossed up his hands. "We'll have to hurry, then. No delays."

"Who's delaying?"

Abby turned and ran the rest of the way to the rear entrance. There was a keypad, and she entered her stolen code. Of course, Southfield had changed all their other codes upon Newman's capture, but he swore this one would be different. It was the Director's personal access code- he'd never think to change it, because he'd never believe Newman would be clever enough to steal it.

That was what he said. Of course, if he wanted to betray them one last time, this would be a rather neat way of doing it. Press a button, call down all the guards on their heads. No loose ends.

Abby shared a look with Becker, who nodded. She pressed 'ENTER.'

The door slid open. No alarms sounded. Abby exhaled.

"Doesn't mean I like him," Becker muttered, and he preceded her into the facility.

The place was dark and cold and sterile, full of all sorts of branching corridors. Abby would have been completely lost, if not for Newman's directions. He guessed Matt would be held on the basement level, in what amounted to a storage locker. Abby kept reciting the directions under her breath... with or without the device, she wouldn't have a lot of extra time to find him.

She did find the stairs to the next level, and started down. After three steps with no one following, she turned to see Becker standing vigil at the top of the stairs.

"This is where we part company," he said. "Go find Matt; I'll keep their attention focused up here."

Abby frowned. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Abby..." He smiled at her, just for a second. "They won't get past me."

Abby nodded dully, her head so full of sadness that it ached. On impulse, she ran back up the stairs and threw herself into Becker's arms. The hug lasted a long time- an unspoken moment of mutually shared loss. When Abby stepped back, her eyes shone with tears.

"Be careful," she said, knowing he wouldn't listen.

"Good luck, luv."

Becker turned and walked toward whatever he had planned. Abby wanted to go after him; but this, too, could have been the moment of weakness from Matt's warning. It was easy for Abby to imagine herself, in some other life, deciding the cost was too high and calling the whole thing off.

She couldn't allow that. She couldn't admit defeat, not now. So she let him go. Then she turned and ran down the stairs before the tears started flowing again.

* * *

The sergeant took a step toward Newman, not quite smiling, just... satisfied. Just doing his duty. He eyed Jenny like a satisfactory meal, and then turned to the mercenary.

"You finally brought us Jenny Lewis."

"For the right price," Newman said, "but I'm not talking to anyone's henchman. Get Rivera out here."

The sergeant frowned. "I'm fully empowered to negotiate."

"Yeah, but I don't know you. Don't trust you. I'll only talk to Rivera."

"I see... well, that_ is_ a problem." The sergeant shook his head, a mockery of compassion. "I'm afraid Major Rivera is unavailable, and I'm already bored of you. Take her into custody."

The soldiers moved in around them; Newman placed himself between the nearest ones and Jenny. "Now, wait just a minute, you little-"

The sergeant snapped his fingers. "Oh, yes, and kill him. No loose ends."

A dozen soldiers trained their rifles on Jenny and Newman and prepared to open fire...

* * *

The weird thing about the lower level of the Southfield facility was, it shimmered with the time effect without Abby even turning on her device. Everything around her seemed slightly distorted, like she was seeing double- or seeing multiple versions at once. In the distance, she heard someone screaming in death and someone else being born, and they might have been the same person at the same time.

Abby hoped that meant she was getting close to the time-distorting machine; otherwise, she was simply going mad. At this point, either seemed plausible.

Abby crept toward a door at the end of a series of doors in a long corridor, clutching her rifle and sticking to the shadows, hoping not to be noticed. It was a bit hard to tell if she was making any progress, what with time not working properly. But she thought she was nearly there, when suddenly...

"You! Stop there!"

Abby turned; a young man in uniform stood opposite Matt's door, pointing a rifle at her. Abby ducked into the next doorway down just before he sprayed the wall with bullets. Reluctantly, she raised her own rifle and returned fire, hoping to pin him down... scare him away... _anything,_ so she could get where she needed to go...

_"Then I remembered the device, and I saw the cool-down period had elapsed. I couldn't tell you how I knew; it was like using a remote control you've never seen before, and none of the buttons make sense or do anything rational. But Connor knew me really well, so everything did what I instinctively thought it should. Honestly, I think he made it idiot-proof..._

_"So I just... pressed a button. Everything stopped. The Southfield soldier stopped. His bullets stopped in mid-air. I wandered out in the corridor, fearing every second the power would run down again. I looked at his face; he was blond, like me. Couldn't have been more than twenty-five. I don't think he meant any harm. I think he was as scared as I was. I wondered how he got mixed up with those people, whether he just made the wrong friends, got assigned the wrong mission..._

_"I wanted to think of a peaceful way past him. But the device was really running low. Connor made all that time for silly jokes, but now there was none. I'd barely crossed the corridor when the display started blinking. I knew instinctively what that meant, too. I only had a moment, and it just... wasn't coming. I couldn't think of one more clever thing._

_"So I stood behind him, and when time snapped back into focus, I held up my rifle to his back. I hoped he'd surrender, drop his weapon. But he didn't. He turned and made a grab for the rifle, got hold of it and tried to wrench it away. He was stronger than me. I couldn't let him win._

_"I wish I could tell you I thought about what Becker said: How it would never have happened, how nobody would die, so long as I was right. But I didn't. I thought, 'I don't want to die.' That's all. In that moment, that's all I was thinking. Not even something about Connor or my friends, nothing heroic. 'I don't want to die.'_

_"I pulled the trigger. Point-blank range, right in his chest. He fell against the opposite wall, staring at me, all but dead. I had no choice. At least... I try to believe I had no choice._

_"But there was no time for that, so I decided not to care. I decided to believe it'd be okay, time would be reset. It was another bridge I'd burned. Another thing I thought I couldn't do, and it turned out I could. That was the beginning of the end for me. From that moment, I was headed straight for... well, for what came next. Like it was locked-in, inevitable._

_"But we're not quite there yet."_

* * *

Becker heard Major Rivera's voice from some distance away, a powerful baritone, echoing off the walls: "If Jenny Lewis is here, so are the others. I want these people hunted down. No mistakes."

Several other voices responded in the affirmative, and then Becker heard running. He counted silently, waited for them to approach a nice, wide chamber with no cover, and pulled the pin from a grenade, rolling it out into the chamber.

He covered his head a second before the explosion, which rocked the base down to its foundations. A moment later, he heard Rivera swearing and issuing orders.

_He's still with us. Pity._

In an effort to remedy that situation, Becker leaned around the corner and called, "I'm right here, Major! Fast enough for you?"

Rivera swore under his breath. "Get him, dammit!"

Half a dozen soldiers, including Rivera, opened fire on Becker, who ducked back around the corner before returning fire. One of the Southfield men cried out; they'd soon start working their way forward, but Becker's aim was good enough to make them pay the price for it.

But Rivera had more games up his sleeve. Two soldiers appeared on the opposite side of the chamber, flanking Becker. He managed to get one of them with his next volley, but he had to lean out into the corridor, exposing himself to their fire.

Rivera had been waiting for that. He fired twice, and the second round exploded through Becker's side in a rush of red-hot pain. He fell back against the wall, wounded and barely able to breathe.

He thought about the time they went in search of Abby's brother. He'd thought he was dead then. And the time in the school... he was wounded there, too. And the time with the triceratops, just a few months ago. He'd survived worse situations than this.

_That's the problem_, Becker thought. _That seems to be all the use there is for me: The good soldier. I always survive. So many people I couldn't save... Professor Cutter, Sarah, most likely Emily, very nearly Danny. Connor- poor Connor. He was such a decent bloke, never in his life hurt a fly. And Jess, who died thinking she was lucky to be with me. Like I was something special, a great hero. I never got to tell her I was the lucky one, because there's nobody like her in the whole world. She made it all seem worthwhile again, but I never said that. I would have done... I really would have told her someday, somehow. I would have found the words. But she's gone, too._

_Always, always I move on, and tell myself I'm protecting those who remain. But what if there's nobody left? What good is the tin soldier when everything has gone, and there's no one to protect? What's left for him... except to do his duty, one more time?_

Becker looked down; his whole abdomen felt on fire. He staunched the bleeding as best he could and tried to get a sense of Rivera's position.

Soon enough, the American obliged: "Captain Becker! I've been looking forward to this- soldier to soldier!"

Becker laughed. "You betrayed your uniform, your country, and your friends! You may have been a soldier once, but no more!"

"That's unfair!" Rivera said. "We're making a perfect world, Becker. No suffering, no fear. No kids getting blown up for a flag. This is greater than any one nation's interest. I will die for this cause."

"Glad we're in agreement," Becker said. He leaned around the corner and fired at the source of Rivera's voice, barely missing the major.

He'd seen the soldiers creeping up on him, the one still flanking him. He didn't have much time, so he pulled the pin on another grenade and tossed it into the chamber. The building shook again, causing Becker no end of agony as it jostled his wound. From the screams, it pained someone else, as well.

But not Rivera. Becker still heard the American major swearing and working his way to a clear shot. Becker intended to put an end to the son of a bitch if it was the last thing he did.

Coincidentally, he also intended it to be the last thing he did, and the bullet hole seemed to agree.

* * *

Jenny refused to close her eyes in the moment before death- refused to show these people anything like fear, although she was privately terrified. But just before they could shoot her, the ground trembled under Jenny's feet as something very close by exploded.

The sergeant turned to a corporal. "Take half the squad and check it out."

The corporal nodded and disappeared inside the base with half a dozen soldiers. While they were distracted, Jenny leaned close to Newman.

"I don't suppose we have an...?"

"Exit strategy? What would be the fun in that?" Newman grinned and showed her something he'd retrieved from his pocket in the confusion- a small, silver orb. "If, for example, I had one of those flash bombs that disrupts the plague, that wouldn't be much fun... for anyone."

While Jenny was rediscovering her ability to smile, Newman whirled and threw the flash bomb on the ground, detonating it at the sergeant's feet and briefly stunning him.

Its effect on the future predators was worse. Developed by a man named Downing in the Southfield lab, the flash bombs did something to the synapses of the brain, temporarily knocking out the group mind that controlled the plague victims. Human victims subjected to the bombs tended to pass out.

Future predators were made of sterner stuff; apparently they only needed a brief interruption in the plague's control to throw it off completely. Once recovered from the initial shock, they roused themselves and did what came naturally: they turned on their masters. The remaining soldiers fell in moments as one after another, the future predators they thought they owned whirled and gutted them.

In the middle of the chaos Newman surveyed his work, grinning like a madman.

Jenny punched his arm. "Stop being smug and_ run!_"

Even Newman couldn't dispute the excellence of that advice. They broke for cover, with the screaming of Southfield soldiers reverberating at their backs...

* * *

As though waking from a bad dream, Abby staggered back from the dead soldier and turned to Matt's door. There wasn't any sort of complicated keypad here, just a padlock, so she shot it off and kicked it open. She took a step into the room-

Someone grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, knocking her rifle away. Abby aimed a knee at her attacker's stomach- well, actually, a little lower- but he blocked the blow. Standoff.

Matt Anderson blinked and realised who he was fighting. Abby did the same, and hugged him.

"So good to see you..."

"You're a sight for sore eyes yourself," said Matt. Then he sobered. "Abby... Emily's gone. Rivera killed her."

Abby nodded. "He's been doing a lot of that. Becker's taking care of it. Come on, I'll explain on the way..."

She retrieved her rifle and handed Matt a pistol from the armoury, and they ran from the cell with Abby breathlessly filling Matt in on the attack on the ARC, Connor's sacrifice, his discovery of Southfield's machine, and Newman's plan for destroying it. She omitted certain details because she feared, even with the loss of Emily, Matt might not approve anything that wasn't strictly ethical. But she did have to show him the time device...

"What the hell is that?" Matt whispered, when they ducked into a closet to let a couple of running soldiers pass.

"You've got one, too," Abby said, "or you should have... your future self knew you'd be captured, so he wouldn't have left it with you. Have you got anything precious, something you'd always be able to find? Like my wedding ring?"

Matt frowned. "Yeah, I suppose. My Army dog tags. I keep 'em in a box in my locker."

"Open that box when we get back. Connor will have locked your device to the tags, I'll bet anything."

Matt arched an eyebrow. "He worked all this out. He was more observant than I realised. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Abby said. "I always knew he was clever. I just didn't know _he_ did."

That being the understatement of a lifetime, Abby didn't know what else to add. She waited for the soldiers' footsteps to recede and started to turn the doorknob- but Matt held her back. She turned to argue, and he placed a finger to his lips.

Then she heard the growling too, and realised what the soldiers were running _from_: The corridor outside sounded like it was crawling with future predators, freed from their mental control and on the hunt. It was only a matter of time before their impossibly keen hearing detected Abby and Matt in the closet. And there was no place to run...

* * *

Major Rivera signalled to the soldier who remained across the corridor, flanking Becker. The man hesitated for perhaps half a second before signalling back, but no longer. He knew what he was being asked to do, and he was loyal to the cause. He stepped away from the wall, exposing himself to Becker's fire...

Several shots rang out, and he dropped. But Rivera knew where those shots had come from, and he finally had the proper angle. He returned fire into a darkened corridor- and heard someone yelp in sudden pain.

_Got you._ Rivera smiled. _So much for the vaunted Captain Becker. I'm a little disappointed._

He kept firing, just to be sure, and waited until a few minutes had passed with nothing from Becker before easing himself forward. Two of his soldiers still survived; Rivera gestured for them to cover him as he approached Becker's position. Three more steps to the corner Becker had been hiding behind... two...

_Bang._ One of Rivera's remaining soldiers dropped. The major whirled, thinking _How the hell did he get away?_ He signalled his remaining colleague to circle around-

_Bang._ That fellow dropped, too.

Rivera felt a jolt of sudden fear, alone in the dark with no idea what had become of his prey, but at least he was no longer disappointed. He spun around the corner, pistol held ready, but the corridor was empty. _Where the hell...?_

Becker slammed into Rivera from the side, knocking his gun to the floor and him against the wall. They struggled together; Rivera was gratified to feel Becker's hands slick with blood that must have been his own. He'd been shot more than once; he was running on adrenaline now. He couldn't hold out for long...

Becker struck him with a solid backhand blow, bouncing his skull off the wall. Rivera saw stars, and responded with a rabbit punch to the stomach. He must have hit near to one of Becker's wounds, because the other man howled in pain and staggered backward.

Rivera pressed his advantage, grinning now. "Be reasonable, Becker. You're a hell of a soldier, but you're badly hurt and my backup will be here at any moment. What makes you think you can win?"

"A hunch," Becker said through gritted teeth. "Two evenly matched opponents, that comes down to motivation. To _love._ I think I loved her more than you love your cause. That's my advantage."

A little worried by the mad edge to the other's voice, Rivera moved in to finish him quickly- and Becker came up swinging, connecting with a solid punch that broke Rivera's nose and sent him reeling. Becker followed with another blow, and then another, and soon he had Rivera cornered, hands grasping to crush his windpipe...

"She was the sweetest girl in the whole world," Becker said. "She'd probably even have mercy on you. _But she's not here_."

Rivera felt himself slammed against the wall, his vision fading as he nearly blacked out. In desperation, he grabbed a sheath strapped to his hip and barely got his fingers around the hilt of a knife. With seconds remaining before he lost consciousness, he buried the blade in Becker's gut, again and again. When the British soldier finally slackened his grip, Rivera threw him across the corridor. Becker nearly fell, but braced himself against the wall and managed to refused to fall...

"Tough bastard," Rivera said, shaking his head. "You really need to _die_. This ought to do it..."

He located the pistol that had fallen at his feet, brought it around before Becker could react, and fired twice. Finally, mercifully, Becker slid down the wall, leaving it stained with his blood. Still he tried to rise, struggling with his own rebelling body as much as he had with Rivera...

"You and your timelines and your schemes," Becker hissed through gritted teeth. "You've unleashed something you can't even begin to imagine."

"I think we can handle the anomalies," Rivera said.

"I was talking about _me_."

Slowly, haltingly, to Major Rivera's great astonishment, Becker pulled himself to his feet. But it couldn't matter; he could barely remain upright, let alone attack. He wobbled unsteadily across the corridor toward Rivera. The major laughed and held up his gun between them...

Becker showed his hand, too- with the pin clutched in it. He nodded about a metre down the corridor, where a pile of grenades was neatly stacked against the wall.

Rivera turned to run, but Becker collapsed into his arms, pinning him in place. He leaned close to Rivera's ear and whispered:

"I hope there are still more of you. I'd like to kill you again sometime."

Staring into Becker's eyes, Rivera couldn't help feeling the other man had planned it this way from the beginning. From his file, Becker took the deaths of his charges hard; he seemed more than happy to sacrifice himself to lure Rivera into position. Rivera wondered how long he would have lasted if Becker had actually wanted to live...

The first grenade went up, taking all the others with it. The major never got his answer, but one thing was certain: When the blast struck them, Becker was smiling. Rivera was not.

* * *

Abby and Matt were still trapped when the really_ big _explosion occurred. Rattling around a closet while the base tore itself apart would have been bad enough- but it also jarred the door open a crack. Abby reached out to close it, but then heavy objects started falling off the upper shelves; something landed on her head, and she gasped...

And the predators heard. They surrounded the closet; one poked its head inside, then toppled backward as Matt shot it, point-blank. Two more appeared to take its place, and Matt shot them, too. But it wouldn't take the predators long to reduce the door to kindling...

"Abby!" Matt growled. "What about that device?"

"The time-stops have been getting shorter and shorter!" Abby protested. "I don't know if it has power to do it again!"

"Well, we'd better try _something!_" Matt said, as he narrowly avoided a swipe from another set of claws.

Abby nodded and reached for the device. But even as her finger grazed the button-

_"I flashed forward again. I saw myself and Matt sneaking through the door, with the predators frozen. It didn't work; the device kicked us back into normal time way too soon, and the predators fell on us..._

_"But they didn't last much longer than we did, because the whole structure of the base had been weakened by Becker's blast. Even as I died in the vision, I saw the sky falling- not, not the sky. The_ ceiling._ And that meant-"_

"Abby!" Matt urged, as she came back to herself. "The device!"

"No..." she said. "We don't need to do that. Just... close the door."

"The door won't last!"

Matt had an excellent point, but Abby knew enough to trust the device's little hints by now. She pulled Matt away while he shot another predator.

"Matt, listen! Just close the door and cover up- right- _now_!"

Even as she slammed the door shut and pulled Matt backward, covering them both as best she could, something outside creaked and groaned. There was a sound like the end of the world, and then the sound of predators screeching.

And then... silence.

After a long moment, Abby backed away from Matt and he took a breath. Cautiously, still clutching his pistol, he eased the door open.

The corridor outside was a mess, the mutated predators all buried in a pile of twisted metal and burning insulation. The flames still flickered, but nothing else moved...

Matt whistled softly and turned to Abby. "How did you know that would happen?"

"Let's just say I'm on better terms with my future self than you are with yours..."

"Lucky you," Matt murmured, and led the way into the corridor. "Now, where's this machine?"

"This way," Abby said.

The place reeked of smoke, and bits of the ceiling crunched underfoot when they moved. But they were getting close- Abby_ felt_ them getting close, as if time itself didn't want to let them pass into the torture chamber Southfield had created. She thought about using her last-resort option- she could make a pretty good guess where she wanted to go, so perhaps they could skip right to the machine, power levels be damned- but the time distortion around the chamber seemed to make that impossible; the device simply locked up when she tried.

"We should be past their defences," she said aloud, reassuring herself. "The worst is over."

They turned the final corner, and saw a door that Abby thought would lead to the final chamber, and the one with the machine. But this area, too, was overrun with predators. They all turned in Abby and Matt's direction at the slightest little _crunch..._

Abby sighed. "Knew I shouldn't have said that..."

Matt made a face. "You're sure that device can't get us through?"

"We already tried it... I mean, we will have done. That's Connor's toys for you: Brilliantly conceived, rubbish when it counts."

"In that case, get behind me," Matt said. "Give me your rifle. Soon as you see a chance, break for the machine and don't stop running."

Abby handed over her weapon, but frowned. "What are you gonna do?"

"What I was born to do," Matt said. "Kids in your time grow up wanting to be football stars. In my day, we all wanted to be exterminators."

Before Abby could object, he started shouting and stamping his feet, drawing all the predators to him. One after another, the hideous creatures pounced; one after another, Matt riddled them with holes and drew them further away from Abby. She had a clear shot at the door... she _knew_ she could make it.

So here it was: The moment future Matt had predicted. He must have meant he himself was the one she'd have to sacrifice. That sounded like Matt; he'd never want her to abandon the others, but himself... yes, she could see him offering himself up. She could destroy the machine, put an end to Southfield, but she'd have to let yet another of her friends die. Abby drew in a deep breath, resigned to letting it happen, for the wild chance it could all be undone later...

_But... wait._

Matt _couldn't_ die now. Connor said he had to go back into the time loop, or it would just continue forever. Abby had to make sure he survived that long. But he was already too far away, and surrounded by too many predators. Saving Matt and stopping the machine seemed mutually exclusive... so there had to be some _other _way, someone else who could...

"Well, well," said a voice in Abby's ear. "Things are exploding, coms are back on-line... seems like it's all gone according to plan, for once."

Matt looked up from killing predators two-handed. "Is that Newman? I know you had to bring the bastard, but did you have to let him _talk_?"

"I've missed you, too, sunshine," said the mercenary's voice. "Actually, things are getting a bit dull up here; I thought you might need a hand."

"We're cut off!" Abby said. "I can reach the machine, but Matt needs help. How soon can you get here?"

"Presently." A long hesitation from the other side of the line. "New plan: Get Anderson out of there, keep him safe. I'll take the machine."

"You're mad; you won't reach it!"

"Yes, I will," he said, quietly certain. "It's the only way, Abby. You can't take chances with his life, or with the power levels on the device. You still need them both; I'm expendable."

Abby blinked. Could _Newman_ be the one she had to sacrifice? He was certainly more tolerable when he acted like Cutter, but calling him 'someone she loved' seemed like a stretch. Still, she tried her best to argue:

"But... now, wait. You can't just..."

"Abigail," he said, "it's all right. Tell Jess I'm sorry. Tell Connor he's a lucky man."

"Wait! Newman, wait!"

Coms went dead again. Abby had to make a quick decision, whether to believe Newman had changes sides for good and all. Whether he was reliable. In short, whether he was really Cutter. She thought about Jenny's loyalty to the man, explicable for no other reason. Abby wondered if she could be fooled by a false Connor, and decided she could not be. So, granting Jenny the same courtesy...

Her mind made up, Abby stabbed a button on the device, blinked briefly out of time, and reappeared at Matt's side, surrounded by a pack of future predators.

"Hold onto me," she told him. Even as the predators pounced, she pressed what she hoped was the 'Home' button, sending them back to the ARC...

* * *

Back above-ground, hiding from the predator-prey carnage in the dunes surrounding the installation, Chris Newman sighed and turned to Jenny.

"Claudia Brown... I just wanted to say... never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," Jenny said, and kissed him. Their embrace was quick and desperate, and she hoped Michael would understand. She wasn't really kissing Newman. She wasn't even _really_ kissing Nick. She was saying the goodbye she'd never gotten to say the first time.

Newman pulled away and smiled; a real smile, a _real_ person, not just cobbled-together bits of sarcasm and displaced memories. Then he turned and broke toward the base, dispatching any predators who got in his path.

Jenny crouched behind the dune with her rifle and picked off those who slipped past his guard. She seemed to have recovered her marksmanship; in any case, she didn't miss a shot, not even through the tears.


	6. Act Five

**Primeval 6.7** ("The Day That Wouldn't Dawn")

by qjay

___DISCLAIMER: Primeval was created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines. It does not belong to me. This is not-for-profit fan fiction, and no infringement is intended._

* * *

**Act Five**

Abby started drawing a breath in the future and finished it inside the ARC. James Lester flinched as she and Matt reappeared not two metres away, between him and the now-locked anomaly to the future, but in characteristic fashion, he feigned indifference.

"Welcome back, I suppose," he said to Matt. Then, to Abby, "I trust we've accomplished _something_ for our efforts?"

"Working on it," Abby said. "Jenny's still in danger. I'll go back for her."

"I'll unlock the anomaly," Lester said.

"There were a lot of predators. I'd better take the express..."

She reached for the trigger on her time device, but Matt grabbed her wrist. She looked up sharply, to find the team leader frowning at her.

"What did Newman mean when he said _Tell Jess and Connor_? You said they were dead."

"Can't we do this later?" Abby said. "Jenny's in danger."

"Abby, tell me! What are you planning?"

"_I'm planning to follow your orders_!" Abby snapped, pulling her wrist away. "You just haven't given them yet. But in future, Matt, when I kick you in the throat, if you're wondering why?_ This_- this whole day. This is why."

Before Matt could decipher that statement, she pressed the button and was gone again...

* * *

Jenny fired repeatedly, doing her best to keep a clear field for Newman as he ran toward the Southfield installation. At first, she fired only at the future predators, but after a while, some of the remaining Southfield mercenaries realised what was happening and directed their fire toward Newman. Jenny had to stop them, too; she tried to keep her shots non-lethal, but she couldn't have sworn she succeeded.

When Newman was only steps away from the front door, the sergeant who'd been in command stepped into his path; Newman put his knife through the man's chest and moved on without breaking stride.

He did pause to input his stolen access code at the door. A predator that had been scaling the installation dropped down on him and raked its claws across his back. Jenny shouted something wordless and angry, and shot it in the head at soon as Newman threw it off. The mercenary glanced back just once, smiling as the door opened, and then vanished inside. Jenny couldn't help noticing the red stain spreading rather quickly across his back. She wondered how bad that wound was.

Something growled not far away, and it suddenly occurred to Jenny she had more immediate problems. Surviving Southfield men were thin on the ground now, and all those gunshots had drawn the predators toward new prey. Several of them now encircled Jenny. She fired a couple of shots, but the damned things were so fast- she couldn't possibly get them all in time. She shot one predator at a distance. Another died as it reached out for her. A third leaped through the air, a millisecond from falling on Jenny with its teeth and claws-

Something- almost a mirage- appeared at Jenny's side. In the space of a heartbeat, it resolved itself into Abby Maitland, who wrapped her arms around Jenny-

And then they were in the ARC, standing with Lester and Matt. Jenny blinked several times, thinking she must have been knocked to the ground and hit her head- but no, it was still the ARC. It seemed impossible, and yet...

"We have to go back," she said, even before she'd fully processed what had happened. "We have to go back and help him!"

Abby shook her head and held up her time device. "Jenny, we can't. This thing's running on fumes."

"He said that machine could make him _un-happen_!" Jenny snapped, in a panic. "Like he never lived at all! I can't allow that, I just can't!"

"I understand, but-"

"Abby, he's all that's left of Nick!"

Stalemate. Jenny appealed to Lester for support, but he looked away. Abby's eyes found Matt, who nodded. Swearing under her breath, she double-checked the device.

"Fine, but I'm going alone. I won't waste the last of the power."

Suddenly it all came together: Abby's determination on that point, the metal cards invented by Connor which Jenny had felt in her pocket when they were tangled up for the trip back to the ARC... she knew what Abby was planning, and it was incredibly dangerous. Impulsively, Jenny hugged her friend...

Abby pushed her to arm's length and nodded, then disappeared...

* * *

Newman had planned so many escapes from the Southfield installation, he navigated its corridors by instinct. The fact that Becker's sabotage had left the place half-demolished slowed him down only a bit, and the few guards who survived seemed more interested in running away than impeding Newman further. Not even the fiery pain from his wound or the blood streaming down his back could keep him from his goal.

It was the predators that posed a problem. Those idiots had filled the place with them, confident in their absolute control of time and space. Newman had to freeze periodically as one or more of the scavengers turned a corner in front of him, listening for prey. He'd remain very still and refuse to breathe until it moved on, and then do the same himself.

This worked the first three times; the fourth time he skidded to a halt too slowly and tripped into a pile of rubbish. The predator scrambled toward him. Newman lifted his pistol, but didn't think he'd get off a shot in time...

Several EMD bolts took it down from the side. Newman frowned; none of them had brought EMD's, so who...?

Matt Anderson's annoying future twin stepped around the corner and tipped an imaginary cap. Newman responded with an obscene gesture. He climbed to his feet without help from the time-traveller, grumbling all the way.

"Thought you couldn't interfere."

"I can't do anything you couldn't have done yourselves without risking a paradox," future Matt said. "You _might _have shot that thing in time. Then again, you might not have. I decided not to take the risk."

Newman grunted as they moved down the next corridor. "You've done nothing but take risks since this began."

"Is that what you think?" Matt shook his head. "You really don't know why you're here, do you? Why Lester brought you in, and why I pressured him into it?"

Newman shrugged. "I'd assumed you were idiots."

"I admit the evidence favours idiocy so far," said the future Matt. "But there's more to... uh-oh."

They stopped in front of the ruined corridor where the previous version of Matt and Abby had been forced to halt. Half a dozen predators still roamed between them and the door. Newman and the future Matt stood just out of auditory range.

"This would be one of those areas where I can't interfere..."

"Of course it is," said Newman. A spasm of pain travelled up his spine, and he shook it off. "You wouldn't want to be of any use-"

But when he turned to continue the argument, the future Matt was gone. Newman took a deep breath, drew on whatever reserves of energy he had left, and found it wasn't enough. So he drew on something else: Rather than fighting the memories that had been swirling about his brain for months, he gave in to them, tried to locate the man they described... the man who'd never give up with innocent lives on the line.

_He sees himself fending off airborne _Anurognathus_ with a blowtorch... rescuing a woman trapped by a rampaging mammoth... jumping out a window clinging to a fire hose to evade _Pristichampsus_..._

"Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, we've seen worse. Sort of..."

With pistol in one hand and knife in the other, he counted ten and broke from cover. He remembered Cutter using the sound of broken glass to confuse the predators' hyper-acute senses, so he fired repeatedly into the pile of debris as he moved, hoping to kick up as much confusion and racket as possible. A couple of tredators did move toward the sound of the bullets striking home. Another pounced on Newman and got in a swipe across his chest as he buried his knife in its neck. A second clawed his side before he could bring his pistol around to shoot it, and a third sank its teeth into his arm and nearly ripped it from its socket before he managed to hack it with away the knife...

But Newman's head was spinning; he was in too much pain, bleeding from too many wounds. He collapsed within a few steps of the door. The predators hesitated to enter the weird distortion field surrounding Southfield's machine, but Newman didn't think they'd stay away for long...

Someone grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. Surprised, half-delirious, Newman needed a moment to realise it was the future Matt again, all but dragging him toward his destination as he fired his EMD to keep the predators at bay.

"This is non-interference?" Newman demanded.

"Close enough," Matt growled, "now_ shift_!"

With Matt providing the cover, they made it to the door. Newman reached out with trembling fingers and stabbed in the code. It seemed to take an eternity for the door to swing open...

With all the confusion and mess, only a single technician remained on duty with the machine, and he didn't seem any too thrilled to be there. When Newman raised his pistol, he bolted through the now-open door. It didn't sound like he made it past the remaining predators in the chamber outside. Newman didn't look back to check; instead, he staggered to the machine while Matt closed the door behind them.

Even with the reprieve, Newman wasn't safely home. The machine took up most of the room, and its complicated bank of controls were beyond his ken. They swam in front of his darkening vision the same way Danny's complicated instructions for turning the machine off swam through his drifting mind.

Matt pulled him back into the moment. "Come on, Cutter could have done this with his eyes closed! You're not gonna admit you're a pale imitation of him?"

"But I am," Newman breathed. "I've always been... just a ghost..."

"But you're wrong, you're so wrong! Don't you understand? Getting past the predators was nothing! Becker or I could have done that- any decent soldier! The hard part was that damned machine, and working out what Southfield was up to in the first place! They're drawing directly from Helen's expertise, so the only people who could have matched them were the ones who were a match for Helen. The ones who knew anomalies best: Cutter and Connor.

"Southfield is ready for Connor. They know he's dangerous, so they always- _always_, in every timeline, make sure he's dead before this moment arrives. With him out of the way, they think they're safe. But in their arrogance, they gave us another way to beat them: You. They don't think you're a threat. They think you're too thick to anticipate them. But they're wrong- you've got Cutter's spark of genius. Lester realised that. Even if he couldn't know why, he knew you were special. You were his ace in the hole, the thing he could count on when all else failed. So I convinced him all else had failed... because we needed you. I said Southfield had to be beaten by someone who _could _have done it. There were only two like that in the world, and one is inside you.

"Southfield killed a lot of people today. They think all our heroes are gone. Cutter believed there was a hero in everyone... even unlikely people like Connor. Even Helen, in her way. You get to decide if he was right, Mr. Newman. But you don't have long, so if I were you, I wouldn't doss about all day."

Impatient with this lecture, Newman began telling the time-traveller to sod off- but Matt had vanished again, as abruptly as ever. Newman was alone in a darkened chamber with the machine that broke the world. He stared at the controls until he went cross-eyed...

_Wait. I do recognise this... from Cutter's memories... a schematic, something to do with that model of anomalies he was building... yes! Yes, he was close to understanding all this himself! If it's the same as in Cutter's mind, it should be possible to disrupt it by..._

"Right, then," Newman said. His hands flew over the control panel as he pictured the circuits Cutter had imagined, the connections between timelines and points in history. At first, nothing seemed to happen- then, all at once, the invisible tentacles grasping dozens of potential timelines retracted back into the machine. Its thrumming power faltered, then failed. The lights dimmed further, and time itself seemed to gasp as it jolted back to normal operation.

When the machine's distortions had been ended, Newman used up the last of his ammunition on the console, trashing it beyond repair. He fell to his knees as the damned thing finally shorted out for good, swirling with its own, golden temporal energy...

For a moment, he thought that was all. He'd done it, he'd won out over Southfield and himself. His wounds were severe, but nothing he couldn't manage...

Then the golden glow spread outward from the machine, across the floor, reaching for Newman. He could _feel_ what was happening, his whole life being unwound, as his boots and then his legs began to disappear. He looked up in a panic and saw Matt Anderson smiling at him.

"You did it," the future Matt said. "Thank you."

"Doesn't matter," Newman sighed. "No one will remember..."

Matt reached into his pocket, produced a black, metallic card, and showed it to Newman. "Some will."

Newman didn't understand at first- then, as the nothingness spread to consume his arms and torso, he started to laugh. He was still laughing when he faded from existence entirely.

* * *

Abby blinked into existence on the ridge overlooking the Southfield base, only to realise there wasn't much of a base remaining. The whole installation shimmered with the golden time effect. Men and predators lay dead in front of the doors, killed by Newman or Jenny or each other, and the time effect reached out for them, too. The whole of Southfield's history seemed to shimmer and fade...

_I'm too late,_ she thought. _He went in alone and saved us. He saved everyone. Four years ago, Cutter went in for Helen, and left Connor and me alone... and now he's come back for us. Across the whole of time and space, he found us and saved us, one more time..._

The golden effect spread out from the Southfield base until Abby wondered if she ought to get out of the way- but the effect was upon her before she could find the trigger on the device, and she closed her eyes in sudden fear-

She opened her eyes and drew a breath of warm, sweetly-scented air. The whole future had changed with the destruction of Southfield's machine. She was no longer standing in a wasteland, but on a green hill overlooking a valley full of flowers. A little stream wound its way through the place where the base had been, washing away the blood of men and predators in a flood of cool, clear water...

Abby's legs gave out as adrenaline betrayed her. She fell down on the hill and laughed at the end of Matt Anderson's apocalyptic future...

_"And that's when I knew. Newman was gone, and so was Southfield, but I still hadn't had that moment when I could save Connor. Matt told me I'd have to sacrifice someone... and suddenly I understood what he meant. I knew what he'd done, what he'd been working toward from the beginning. The moment arrived, and I knew what it would cost..."_

Her laughter turned to tears. She knelt there, weeping on the green hill, for what felt like a long time. Then a hand fell on her shoulder, and she looked up to find the future Matt standing over her.

He said, "You know, then."

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I understand now. But I don't think I can do this."

"Abby, you have to. If you want him back- if you want any of them back- this has to happen."

She looked up at Matt in sudden fury. "How could you? You _let_ it come to this!"

She thought he'd defend himself, argue it was all for the greater good, it was worth it for the sake of the timeline. But he only looked ashamed. "Southfield took away all my weapons. All I had left was..."

"Me," Abby said, "and Becker. You made us your weapons. You did it by arranging a future where we lost everything we loved. Where we had nothing to lose."

Matt nodded. "It had to be you. Connor and Jess and Emily, bless them... they never would have been right for this. They couldn't have done what you've done."

"They couldn't be turned into killers, you mean!" Abby glared at the imitation of Matt, wishing she could throttle him- wishing that would make it better. "But we were different, right? Becker with his guilt and duty and me with my trust issues... we were just angry enough. You knew we'd be selfish."

"I knew you'd be strong," Matt corrected her. "Abby, look at what's happened today. You've saved the whole world, the future of everything and everyone on the planet. But you did it by breaking the rules- yes, even by killing. Do you really think Connor could have done that?"

Tears burned at Abby's eyes, and she closed them. "You know he couldn't. He let himself die... he _chose _death over becoming like them. If this works, he'll wake up and he won't even remember. He'll never have suffered at all, and he'll still be innocent. But me... I fell into the trap, and now I've got to live with it. I've got to live my life, knowing I have this in me. I was willing to break the whole world."

"To save the people you love," Matt said, "that's not so bad. There are billions of people in the world, Abby, but none of us cares about more than a few dozen of them. Not really. They're your reality, the people who make life matter. If you're lucky, they make you better than you were. Being willing to sacrifice nameless people, _potential_ futures for their sake... yes, it's wrong. It's selfish. But it's human."

He helped Abby to her feet and held her until the tears stopped. She looked up at him, searching for answers in ancient eyes.

"How do I tell him... tell you?"

"You won't have to," future Matt promised. "By the time you get back, he'll have the idea himself. I always said he was a bright lad. And those people... they're _his_ world, too. It's not your fault, Abby. None of it was your fault."

"That's all well and good, but everyone else gets to start over- if it's not my fault, why me? Why do I have to live with it?"

"Because you can," Matt said, and faded away.

She remained in the future for several minutes after he'd gone, composing herself. It wouldn't do for the others to know what had happened. She couldn't present it to them like that. She'd have to be persuasive, reasonable. She'd have to pretend she didn't know how it would end. When she knew what to say, her fingers found the recall button on the device.

The ARC was still in ruins. Time was sorting itself out, but wouldn't be completely right until Abby accomplished her mission. First things first.

"I'm sorry," she said to Jenny. "I did try to save him, but I couldn't. He was a hero, Jenny. He was Cutter at the end."

Jennifer Lewis frowned. "Who was?"

_"Right then, I realised I was truly down the rabbit hole. Newman had been completely erased, and now everything left behind by Southfield's machine had to follow. If I'd been paying attention, I'd have noticed Jenny's eyes were red, her voice a bit wrong. I think she did remember, on some level. _

_"But I had no time to wonder about that. I had to explain the next step to the others- actually, I only had to support Matt as he explained it. He volunteered, as predicted. But our proposal wasn't exactly met with applause..."_

"Absolutely not, it's out of the question!" James Lester said a minute later, when the idea was out in the open. "I can't believe you'd ask me to consider it!"

"Lester, it's the only way," Abby said. "Don't you understand? Matt's future self has been leading us here all along!"

"Yes, good point." Lester turned to their team leader. "Matt_ is_ a time-traveller. Why don't you explain, for the benefit of us poor primitives, precisely how this would work?"

Matt looked from one of them to the next, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a device similar to Abby's. She noted he was wearing his military dog tags around his neck.

"My future self created this scenario. If I step into the time loop, I become him and spend the next thousand years setting it up. I reappear here- probably not one second after I left. This timeline, with all its death and destruction, will be permanent.

"That's what happens if I use _this _device. But there's another way. Instead of my device, I could go back using Abby's- which doesn't have power for more than one more trip."

"What's different about Abby's?" said Jenny.

"It has the last three decades locked out," Abby explained. "Matt couldn't use it to appear to himself, or to Connor. He couldn't persuade them to build the time machine. None of this could have happened."

Matt nodded. "And if I take it to the past, where it can't be recharged... then none of it can _ever_ happen. We force time to work around the biggest, nastiest paradox we can imagine... to create the stable timeline we haven't had since New Dawn. It might restore everyone."

"I know it will," Abby said. "Southfield's machine cut across all timelines. That's where it drew its power. If we do this, it _can't _come back- ever. They can never hurt anyone again. That's got to result in a better future."

"An interesting speculation, but suppose it shifts us into Matt's apocalyptic timeline for good?" Lester said. "It's a fifty-fifty chance of _destroying the world._"

"What happens to you?" Jenny asked Matt.

The team leader looked around at his friends and shrugged. "I don't know. I'd be writing a whole new destiny for myself. I might reappear in my own time, just as if I'd never come back. I might vanish entirely. I might be trapped in the past as some sort of... anomaly."

"Oh," Lester said. "Well, if that's all..."

"My double told me I _created_ Southfield. Apparently this whole thing happened because I interfered with history. If erasing me is what it takes to save Emily and the others, I'm willing to do it."

Lester took a deep breath. "It's not just about you. No one feels today's losses more deeply than I, but..."

"Oh, what rubbish!" Abby said, her temper getting the better of her. "You've been cruel to Connor since the day he got here! You're_ glad_ to be rid of him!"

Lester turned on her, but not with anger- with a fond look like an indulgent uncle. A look that made her ashamed. "You know better, Abby. I loved that boy. I loved them all. But you can't put everything at risk- the timeline, the entire world- for the sake of love."

Matt cleared his throat and said quietly, "Why else would you risk everything?"

"Lester, come on," Abby breathed. "Can you imagine the world is better off after today? After what Southfield has done? This is our best chance of putting things right!"

Lester frowned. "You expect me to believe that's your completely impartial opinion?"

"No," Abby said, "I don't. And if you want me to beg you, for Connor's sake, I will. But we've known each other a long time, so I'm asking you to trust me. It's the only way."

Lester held her eyes for a long moment, then stepped back, shaking his head. "I won't make this decision as director of the ARC. It's beyond my authority. But I am personally against it."

Abby tried her best to conceal the smile; that was classic Lester, helping them without admitting he was helping. Now it came down to a vote on the subject, and he had to know how that would go.

First, Jenny abstained: "It's not my decision, either. Matt's the one in danger, not me."

Matt nodded. "And I'm for it, so we're deadlocked. Abby?"

There it was- the moment she'd never had the strength for, in all of future-Matt's trips through the loop. Only this time, she was ready for it, because he'd been preparing her from the beginning. It didn't matter whether Abby was really the only one who could have saved the team; Matt had made her _believe _it. He'd hardened her and put her on a path where her decision was inevitable. He knew exactly what the team would do at every turn. Abby shook her head in admiration of his insight, even as she hated him a bit for the result.

She walked up to his past self and removed the ring from her finger, holding it out in her palm.

"Trade you for yours," she said. "There's one more thing I have to do."

* * *

Danny Quinn hated to admit it, but he was on the verge of falling asleep with the world at stake. He'd already traded his heavy assault rifle for a pistol, and given up trading barbs with the captive Director in favour of sitting quietly across the desk, watching the bastard practice his superiority complex.

Lisa had locked down the facility and alerted the American government. Sharon had come up dry on tracking Major Rivera. Duncan reported odd time distortions throughout the world and a surge in anomalies, but with half their personnel locked away as sympathisers, there wasn't much Area 94 could do. Hours passed, and nothing happened.

Then, all at once, something did: Abby Maitland appeared at Danny's side, just as though she'd walked through the door. She looked like hell and wore somebody's dog tags around her neck. Danny jerked to his feet, startled, but the Director didn't even look surprised.

"Abby, what the...?"

"Hello, Danny. Don't mind me." Abby put her palms down on the Director's desk and leaned across it, glaring. "My name's Abby Temple and I'm here to talk about my husband."

Danny blinked to hear Abby identify herself; somehow she didn't seem the type to abandon her own name. But then, she wasn't really making introductions, since the Director already knew her: She was saying _You've crossed the wrong person and now you're gonna pay_. Danny approved.

The Director yawned and stretched, as though people materialised in his office twice an hour. "Oh, yes. Sorry about that. He was a nice kid. But only he could have stopped us, so it's just business."

"You're wrong," Abby said. "_We _stopped you. All of us. You meddled with people you didn't understand, and you taught them how to hate. There's nothing stupider or more dangerous."

"Maybe," said the Director. "But you might be declaring victory prematurely. This is a setback, nothing more. We've worked dozens of our people into key positions in world governments..."

"Thanks to your machine," Abby said. "Your machine's gone. It's rubbish. There'll be no more meddling with history."

The Director shrugged. "Maybe. It's not final until you've made your choice. And you haven't, have you? Not deep down. You don't have it in you to kill Matt Anderson, to alter the lives of billions. You're throwing a little tantrum now, but you'll back down. You always do."

Danny watched the confrontation, at once confused and fascinated, as Abby's face became a stone mask of rage. Danny had stood down velociraptors, but he wouldn't have patronised Abby like that for anything in the world. Some things were just stupid.

"Not this time," she said. "You've taken all my reasons to stop."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll think of new ones," the Director chuckled. "Look at yourself, Abby. Look what's become of you. You were just a girl who loved lizards. You expect me to believe you'll put the whole world at risk, you'll take responsibility for the human race? You don't have that kind of faith."

"It's not just the human race as it is," Abby smiled. "It's our whole future... all our possibilities. It's things that are meant to be. They give me all the faith I need."

"If you do this," the Director warned, "you'll be proving us right. Cutter, for all his ideals, will have accomplished nothing more than creating a monster."

"Wrong again," said Abby. "Cutter made me better than I was. _You_ did this, so here's your reward."

She approached the Director and tucked something into his shirt pocket- a black metallic shape like an ATM card. While he stared with growing apprehension, Abby marched back around his desk.

"Borrow this, Danny? Thanks."

Danny was so startled, he didn't resist as Abby took the gun from his hand and emptied the clip on the Director. The vile old man slumped over his desk in a rapidly-widening puddle of red. Danny turned on his old friend and stared in shock.

"Abby, you... what have you...?"

"Oh, don't worry, he'll be fine. Everyone gets a second chance today. But I do want him to remember this, so here's for you." Abby handed one of the metal cards to Danny, along with a flash drive. "That's all the evidence we've got on Southfield. I don't know what's about to change, but I'm betting enough shady dealings will carry over to put him in jail.

"Just in case, I'd like you to give him a message when he recovers: Tell him only Connor Temple can stop that from happening again. So he'd better live a really long time."

"I'll tell him it's just business." For her words and bearing, from the anguish lurking just beneath the surface, Danny finally understood everything that had just occurred- but he still didn't know where it was going. In the gentlest voice he could manage, he said, "Abby, what happened to Connor?"

She smiled. "He lived, Danny. We got married and got away from the ARC and_ lived_. That's the ending he deserves."

Danny swallowed hard. "People don't always get the ending they deserve..."

"They do today."

Abby hugged him, burying her head in his chest. Danny hugged her back, but when he opened his mouth to console her, she was gone.

Danny stepped back and surveyed what was left of the Director and his operation. It was probably the strangest day he'd had since getting involved with anomalies. Probably, but not for certain.

* * *

Back at the ARC, Abby watched her wedding ring disappear into Matt's pocket. She regretted losing it for sentimental reasons, but she wouldn't miss its special properties. She'd had enough of being some sort of time-travelling superhero.

She smiled at the mental image:_ That's probably just how Connor thought of it. He probably imagined me in costume. Er, no, better not go any further down that road..._

She offered the dog tags back to Matt, but he folded her hand around them and smiled. "Lose the device. Keep these."

"Are you sure you want to do this? I don't want you to feel like- I mean, if it's because of me and Connor, that's not fair, is it?"

"Yeah, it is," Matt said, still holding her hand. "My team, my responsibility. Wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, I don't want to be him. The future me. A thousand years of hell, turning mad and embittered? No, thanks."

"He wasn't so bad," Abby said, though she wasn't sure she meant it.

"If this works, tell Emily... don't let her forget me."

"I won't," Abby said. "I promise."

Matt released her hand and turned to Lester. "Look after these kids, James."

Lester frowned at them both judiciously. "They're not kids any more. I like to think we had something to do with that."

"So do I." Matt took a deep breath and turned to Jenny. "Thanks for everything."

"Good luck," she said.

Matt held up Abby's mobile device and stared at it She'd already showed him which buttons did what, as best she understood them. He pressed the button, and for a moment nothing happened. Abby feared they'd waited too long; the device was already out of power. But then the golden glow appeared... faintly, then with increasing intensity. It swallowed up Matt, and then the world...

_Here goes nothing,_ Abby thought as the light took her...

When she opened her eyes, she was elsewhere. She was wearing a ridiculous, frilly dress- her wedding dress! She was in their flat, that same morning! And Connor-

Connor was smiling at her and saying, "...you are going to be the most beautiful bride... basically_ ever_."

"You- you- I-" Abby stammered. Then she punched his arm as hard as she could, knocking him backward. "You _left me behind_! You really thought I'd just forget, and move on, and- and- how _could_ you? I knew you were insecure, but I thought it was our little game! After all this time, how can you not know I need you as much as- as- agh! _I hate you_, Connor Temple! I swear sometimes I hate you!"

"O... kay," Connor said. This, at least, he knew how to deal with... but when Abby threw her arms around him and started kissing him, he cleared his throat. "Getting... sort of... mixed messages..."

"Oh, shut up! _Shut up!_" she said, kissing him again.

Connor did his best to enjoy the kissing, but after a moment, his confusion got the better of him. "Abby... you know... I think this wedding ceremony might be stressing you a bit..."

"I don't care about the ceremony!" Abby said. "I don't want a fuss; it doesn't matter. All I want is to be married. I want to start our life together- right _now._ Today. We've wasted enough time."

"Eh... sure?" Connor shrugged. "You know my mum's visiting either way, right?"

"Yeah. That's fine. Everything's fine. Just don't ever doubt that I love you again, all right?_ Never._ Because it turns out I would do anything in the world for you. Just absolutely anything..."

She fell into his arms and started sobbing, and Connor held her, riding out the waves of confusion until he could get a word in:

"Does 'anything' mean I can have an HDTV in the bedroom? I know you've been against it, but I really think..." he trailed off. "Abby, what is it? I don't know why you're crying. What's happened?"

"You're ridiculous," Abby told him. He'd said exactly the wrong thing... but somehow, it was the right thing to turn her tears back into laughter. Connor was bad at many things, but at that, he was brilliant.

They kissed again, and the day seemed to hold the promise of being very pleasant, until Connor's mobile chimed and Abby started in sudden panic. But he held up the device and showed it to her- it really was just a mobile.

"Oh, don't answer it!" she laughed.

"Have to, it's the ARC." Connor accepted the call, long-suffering. "Hello, Lester? We quit. And now you're not my boss, Jim, there's one or two things I've always wanted to say..."

He trailed off again, and over the course of a few moments, his expression turned very serious. By the time he turned off the phone, Connor was grim.

"Something's happened," he told Abby. "It's Matt. They say he's just... gone."

Abby looked away and fought the emotional roller coaster to a standstill. She'd known some version of this was going to happen. The key question was... what came next?

* * *

_"The next three days passed as a blur. Of course, I had to explain what happened. I kept the details to myself, but what I told them was the absolute truth: Matt Anderson was a hero who sacrificed himself to stop an enemy that would have destroyed the whole world. Once he knew what to look for, Connor found evidence of an 'extraordinary temporal event' that would have been immediately fatal for anyone at its centre. That seemed to settle Matt's fate._

_"I didn't have time to grieve properly; I was too busy seeking out changes to the timeline. I didn't want to ask too many questions or even look up the answers in the ARC's records, for fear someone would discover everything and somehow change things back. So I hinted and reminisced and tried to dig up as many details as I could._

_"As best I could tell, most of the same things happened in the new, stabilised timeline: Connor and I still married, Cutter was still gone, Danny and Matt led the ARC afterwards, we got stuck in the Cretaceous, and all that. But the bad things seemed just a little better now, with Southfield's behind-the-scenes power diminished._

_"We did encounter a plague caused by strange experiments in a town called Southfield, but that plague was easily stopped and the people behind it shut down. Their allies launched an attack which hurt Jess, but she was only wounded and was recovering nicely. Matt's double never appeared and Connor never started building the time machine; he thought me mad for suggesting it, and swore on his Star Trek DVD's he'd learned his lesson from New Dawn about meddling with time..._

_"The biggest change seemed to be that Jenny Lewis was gone from the ARC, and no one talked about her. That seemed logical; with no crisis, she was never called back.. But it bothered me, so on the second evening I drove by her house. I learned from a neighbour that Mr. and Mrs. Miller were off on a cruise. That sounded nice; I added 'taking a cruise' to the list of things Connor and I should do, once we'd left the ARC..._

_But first we had Matt's funeral. It was a bright, cool morning, and Lester presided. With no body, of course, the casket was closed. We all attended... me and Connor, Becker and Jess, Emily. Danny Quinn came in from the States for the occasion, mostly to gawk at me, I think. He didn't say anything, but kept eyeing me suspiciously. Danny knew what I'd done; he knew what I was _capable_ of doing. Things between us would never be the same. I decided I could live with that, too. At least the Director was safely put away. Believe me, I checked on that..."_

The breeze ruffled Abby Maitland-Temple's black dress as she filed into place along with Connor. After three days, she was just about used to the world again. She'd gone from getting no sleep at all to only waking up once or twice from nightmares; she assumed they'd subside completely, in time. She hadn't stopped clutching Connor's hand every time he started to leave her side, but sooner or later, he'd do something silly and their usual dynamic would return. For now, people just thought they were newly-weds. Despite the literally funereal atmosphere, she was feeling nearly optimistic about the future...

And then she saw Jenny Lewis, standing a little distance away.

She leaned close to Connor and whispered, "What's she doing here? I thought she was away."

"Came back to pay her respects." Connor shrugged. "Haven't you heard? With us leaving, she's returning to the ARC. Don't ask me how Lester convinced her; I thought she'd never set foot in there again..."

Abby thought that policy very sound, but the explanation sounded ordinary enough. She forgot the whole thing during the funeral. Lester was very solemn, but the finality rang a bit false- Matt's "death" was so sudden and strange that it hadn't quite sunk in- except, perhaps, for Emily, who sat in the back row, alone and sombre. Abby felt awful for her.

When it was over, she made up her mind to have a word. She couldn't tell Emily everything, but at least she could keep her promise to Matt...

She and Connor filed past Becker and Jess; the former was pushing the latter in a wheelchair, although Jess insisted she didn't really need it. The two were adorable, carrying on as they did; Abby was reminded of herself and Connor at the beginning. She hoped it worked for them; Becker would need all the happiness he could get. With Matt gone, he was the logical choice to take over the team.

_There was a time,_ Abby thought, _when I would have been horrified by that. I thought Becker was just another heartless military man. I was so wrong... the ARC couldn't be in better hands._

As they passed, she heard Becker lean down close to Jess's ear and murmur, "I love you."

Jess smiled at him. "What brought that on?"

"Oh... nothing. I just feel I've missed too many chances to say it."

"Oh... you." Jess laughed. "I love you, too..."

Abby smiled and turned away; she'd seen the best consequences of her actions, and now it was time to face the worst. Emily smiled as they approached, though she seemed a bit sad and brittle, surrounded by an imaginary field that had turned her suddenly older...

"We're so sorry," Abby said when they reached her. "Are you all right?"

"I will be," Emily said. Then she surprised them with an actual smile. "Actually, Abby... I got something in the post today. A package with a long letter- and this."

She showed Abby her own wedding ring, somewhat older but perfectly recognisable. Abby's mouth fell open- but instead of accepting the gift, she held up her own hand to display her ring finger.

"Keep it," she said. "We have our own, now. I once asked you, what if it were Matt's ring? I think it always was."

Too late, she remembered she'd said that in the Pleistocene, which apparently never happened, but Emily smiled with recognition. Perhaps they'd had the same conversation somewhere else.

"I don't understand," Connor said. "Matt's alive? Where is he? Is he happy? Is he-"

Emily's smile turned to a knowing smirk. "Oh, you'll find out, both of you. Someday."

With that, Emily turned and walked away. Abby started to go after her, to demand more explanation, but Connor caught her arm.

"You know..." Connor said. "You never told us how it got so bad. You didn't say exactly what happened to make Matt sacrifice himself."

"That's right, I didn't." Abby took a deep breath and let it go. "And I never will."

_Only I have to remember,_ Abby thought, _because I can._

Her sudden shiver had nothing to do with the breeze, but Connor squeezed her hand and led her from the grave site.

"Come on- our escape awaits." He lowered his voice. "And Rex is in the boot."

Abby grinned, and the shadow that had come over her passed. "Sounds perfect..."

As they turned for the exit, Abby nearly bumped into Jenny Lewis, who was standing nearby as if she wanted a word with someone. "Oh- sorry, Jenny. Didn't see you there."

The other woman frowned. "Sorry, who?"

"You. Jenny Lewis. My old friend. I bumped into you, and I'm sorry."

Jenny looked at her like she had two heads, and what was more worrisome, Connor did the same. Abby looked from one to the other, waiting to be let in on the joke.

"Abby, what are you talking about?" Connor said at last. "This is Claudia. Claudia Brown."

_"Yeah, so like I said... rabbit hole."_

* * *

_Some time later, Abby's report wraps up as a woman watches in the computer room of Southfield's disused laboratory. She smiles at the discomfort on Abby's face, the embarrassment of the hero-who-wasn't-quite..._

_"Apparently things went a little better for Claudia, too. I sat Connor down later and made him tell me her history: She was engaged to Cutter at one time, but when he died, she left the ARC just like Jenny did. There are other small differences, but she's the biggest one I've found._

_"And the thing is, she's lovely. I mean, she really is. I feel awful for Jenny- I wish I could get her back- but after all, Claudia was here first. And if bringing her back was the worst thing we did... well, that's not so bad. It's just something else to remember."_

_Abby Maitland-Temple straightens in her chair and looks right at the camera. "This concludes my official report. I don't expect you to believe me; nobody does. But, look, Connor and I are out now. We've left that life behind. We're just people now, ordinary people. So when you've stopped laughing, kindly leave us alone. All right?"_

_The screen goes black. The woman reaches out and reclaims her DVD, then turns off the screen and speaks to someone who can't hear:_

_"Oh, it's much better than all right, Abby. I must thank you, and I will. Soon..."_

_With a smile, Helen Cutter turns and leaves the computer room._

_**THE END**_

___...of Series Six. I intend to write a seventh and final series for my version of Primeval._

___Two years after the team disbanded, they'll reunite in the wake of tragedy, to face a final threat and an old enemy. Find out the consequences of Matt's sacrifice, Claudia's return, and Helen's revenge in..._

___Primeval: Series Seven_

_…__.coming after a short break._


End file.
